


a good old-fashioned happy ending

by darcylindbergh



Series: things fairy tales are made of [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 25 Days of Christmas, Alcohol, Anal Sex, Banter, Blow Jobs, Christmas, Comfort, Cooking, Cuddling, Dancing, Engagement, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Frottage, Happy Ending, Humor, Insecure Sherlock, Kissing, Light Angst, Loving John, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Nightmares, Rimming, Sleepy Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-04 19:55:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 32,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5346593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Sherlock stands there, in the middle of a Christmas market as John hums along to <i>Silent Night,</i> John’s hand warm in his with fingertips a little gritty from the cinnamon-sugar doused churros they’d shared, and thinks, <i>oh, that’s–that’s an idea, isn’t it?</i></p><p>*</p><p>For Christmas this year, Sherlock wants to get John something special: something every fairytale deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shopping for Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Старый добрый финал](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550116) by [Make_believe_world](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Make_believe_world/pseuds/Make_believe_world)



> This is a series of connected ficlets originally posted to tumblr for the [25 Days of Fic-mas](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com/post/134308673979/25-days-of-fic-mas), posted by [hudders-and-hiddles](hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com). Each chapter title is a prompt from the list.
> 
> This is a linear, connected set of scenes, but please note that they are tumblr ficlets and thus this story may lack some of the fleshing out and details that is typical of traditional fics.

_It has to be perfect. It has to be just the right thing, something he wants but doesn’t even know he wants it. Not too expensive, or he’ll balk at it, but not too cheap either, or he’ll think I don’t take it seriously, this whole--this whole thing._

December had snuck up on Sherlock this year, and suddenly he has found himself right in the middle of a Christmas market, watching John close his eyes, smile on his face, breathing deep and slow to catch the scent of cinnamon and gingerbread, the bright sparkle of fairy lights and streetlamps painting him with reds and golds and greens in turn.

He is gorgeous, utterly gorgeous, and Sherlock feels horrendously unprepared.

_How do you choose a Christmas gift for the person who deserves everything, who deserves so much more than you can possibly give them?_

It had been John’s idea, with a fond elbow to the side and a kiss to the temple late that afternoon, and a suggestion to go poke around the booths before holiday shopping begins in earnest and the crowds get too crazy, and watching John take it in--the shoddy wooden stalls masquerading as chalets, the street vendors carting around overpriced, watery hot chocolates, the boughs of pine trees stapled to the stalls and draped in lights and red velvet--with a look of sheer boyish delight makes Sherlock’s stomach flip-flop. When John takes him by the hand and tugs him into the flow of it all, Sherlock can’t help but smile back at him and follow.

The evening is cold and a bit windy, but at least the drizzle stopped several hours ago. The wind turns John’s cheeks a ruddy pink and doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He jokes and laughs and flits through the displays of shiny mercury glass trees and overdressed Victorian angels, dragging Sherlock behind him, leaning up occasionally to kiss the corner of his mouth and rubbing his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand absently and Sherlock is totally entranced by the simplicity of his happiness.

Together, they pick out a handmade ornament for Harry, suggesting sillier and sillier options (Santas wearing Hawaiian shirts and baseball caps, reindeer with light-up noses, snowmen with branches sticking out of wholly inappropriate places) before finally settling on a set of lovely crystal stars with gilded edges. For Mrs Hudson, they pick out three matching stockings to hang from her fireplace--soft white for her, deep blue for Sherlock, and a dark forest green for John, all hand-crocheted in the same pattern.

As for John himself, he looks at a lot of different things, but he doesn’t really seem to connect to anything. He runs his fingertips over huge thick socks and jumpers knitted with Fair Isle designs and even spends several minutes shaking up a display of snow globes, one by one, but he doesn’t really stick to anything that Sherlock thinks he might actually want. Of course, Sherlock had hardly expected to find the perfect gift for John in a wooden stall on the riverside in Southbank, but still. A hint at least would’ve been nice.

In Christmases past, Sherlock has given him practical things, interesting things. Books, scarves, a new alarm clock for his bedroom when his old one started to get fussy around the snooze button. Last year he’d gotten him a pass to a top-secret underground shooting range, so he could practice with his gun and a couple of other firearms, in exchange for five solid favours for Mycroft. John had taught Sherlock how to stand and shoot, correcting his stance with a hand on his shoulder and on his hip, and the silence in the empty shooting range had been deafening, and three days later John had gone to Sherlock’s parents’ house and pretended to forgive his wife.

That’s over now, Sherlock reminds himself fiercely. Over and done. This Christmas is different. This Christmas _they_ are different. This will be the first Christmas since John had kissed Sherlock months ago, so gentle and cautious and hopeful, in the rain outside 221B, the day he’d come home for good. _I’m sorry we had to wait so long,_ John had said, _God, I’m so sorry, I feel like we’ve waited forever_.

So it has to be perfect. He wants John to feel like the wait was worth it. He wants John to know that he’d have waited longer, as long as it took, that he’d have waited forever, for John.

_What do you give a person when you want to give them the rest of your life?_

And Sherlock stands there, in the middle of a Christmas market as John hums along to _Silent Night,_ John’s hand warm in his with fingertips a little gritty from the cinnamon-sugar doused churros they’d shared, and thinks, _oh, that’s–that’s an idea, isn’t it?_


	2. Hot Cocoa

Now that Sherlock’s thought it, he can’t let the idea go.

He thinks, possibly, it isn’t a good idea. He thinks it’s too soon. He thinks it’s too much. He thinks it might not actually be something John even wants, maybe not now, and maybe not ever. Too many bad memories that were still too fresh, too overwhelming.

But the idea has taken root in Sherlock’s mind, distractingly insistent, and he can’t let it go: the idea of asking John, of making a promise and a ring to seal it, and their names written down together and made inseparable.

It’s a silly compulsion. After all, John had already been married once and it had lasted less than a year. John had already made promises about forever, and broken them. That wasn’t John’s fault, obviously, but it just goes to show that making a promise about the rest of your lives is meaningless when you can’t possibly know what the rest of your lives might hold. It’s hopelessly optimistic and foolish and _silly,_ and Sherlock wants it so desperately he thinks he might actually _need_ it.

“Sherlock. Hey, Sherlock. Budge up, you.”

John’s voice and a nudge at Sherlock’s shoulder brings him out of his thoughts. The lights are dim and the fire is burning low; it must be getting late. John stands over him, smiling down affectionately, holding out a steaming mug. “It’s cocoa. Come on, make room, you’re taking up the whole sofa.”

Sherlock shifts automatically, sitting up and sliding his bum to one end, folding his legs a bit so there’s room for John at the other. John hands him the mug--it’s the good kind of hot chocolate, with a bit of whipped cream dolloped right in the middle, sprinkled with cinnamon--and then sits down, puts his legs up to tangle with Sherlock’s, and pulls the blanket from over the back of the sofa to cover them both.

“What’ve you been thinking about all day, hmm?” John asks as he settles in.

“Mm. Venomous spiders.” They’d had a case last week that Anderson had thought was a matter of a brown recluse spider bite. Of course, it hadn’t been, but it would’ve been interesting if it had, and it’s a decent cover for now. He takes a sip of his cocoa and savours the rich taste of dark chocolate, the underlying hint of warm milk, the zing of cinnamon on his tongue.

“Not in this flat, I hope.” John quirks an eyebrow, then grins and pats Sherlock’s foot that’s shoved up next to him. “You’ve just been quiet. Thought it was time to bring you back.”

“I always come back,” Sherlock says. John’s toes stroke over his inner thigh as Sherlock goes to take his next sip and he almost dives his nose directly into his whipped cream.

“I know you do,” John says quietly, and when Sherlock looks back up at him, John’s smile has softened, just barely crinkling the corners of his eyes, so unambiguously _loving_ that it still feels a little like a kick to the chest, and Sherlock can’t look away. “Just missed you, is all.”

They sit together in the hush of the sitting room, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire and sipping at their drinks, rubbing their legs against each other absently, their stomachs getting warm and heavy with hot cocoa, enjoying the fullness of the quiet moment. Sherlock thinks about John missing him, even though they’ve been in the flat together all day, and that John would admit that, would be that open with him, would allow himself that vulnerability, when only a year ago someone John had once trusted had sunk metaphorical meat hooks into John’s soft spaces and tried to rip him apart. He thinks about John making him cocoa and cuddling with him on the sofa at 221B, and the sheer unlikeliness of it all in the face of everything they’d been through.

 _Unlikely_ is a good word to describe the force of John Watson in Sherlock’s life, and then Sherlock has to wonder whether the unlikeliness of it--of John saying yes, of John wanting to bind himself to Sherlock, of the two of them managing, in spite of everything, to create something new and worthwhile and lovely and forever-–might be a sign that it’s not such a bad idea after all.

“All right,” John says eventually. Sherlock glances over at him under eyelids that are beginning to get sticky with sleep; John’s cheeks are flushed with the heat of their bodies pressed together under the blanket and his eyes are half-lidded themselves. He takes Sherlock’s mug from him and then leans over to kiss him, lingering and terribly tender, a little graceless with sleepiness. John tastes like chocolate and spice, sweet and warm, the embers of a fire, the secret stillness of winter. “Come to bed with me.”

They stumble together down the hall, fingers still loosely entwined and reluctant to let go. They kiss at each other’s chins and jaws and noses and shoulders and mouths, affectionate but not suggestive, as they fumble with one another’s clothes, and then they crawl into bed together, settling around each other, and once-upon-a-time-impossible weight of John in the bed next to him and the once-upon-a-time-impossible heat of John’s hand on Sherlock’s hip makes Sherlock think that maybe, just maybe, John might take one more impossible step with him.


	3. Winter Wonderland

Mrs Hudson’s flat is a riot of color and light, her bold wallpaper competing for attention with porcelain knick knacks and now, all of it a bit drowned out under the weight of the Christmas decorations John and Sherlock have been helping her put up. Her faux-velvet sofa and corduroy armchair have been shoved together to make room for a fake tree in the corner, which John and Sherlock have spent the last hour setting up, laughing almost as often as they curse. Classic Christmas songs blast from the old radio in the corner while Mrs Hudson herself bakes almond snowballs in the kitchen, filling the flat with a delicately sweet smell, and Sherlock can’t be bothered to pretend like he’s not enjoying himself.

“Here, then,” John says, unwrapping a length of fairy lights. Sherlock takes the offered end and plugs it in so they can look for burnt out lights. The strand illuminates without a problem, though, pink and green and blue and yellow, bright in the late afternoon shadows. Sherlock turns back to help John drape them over tree, but John smirks and instead wraps the strand of fairy lights around Sherlock’s shoulders and pulls him in for a kiss.

The kiss is all softly muted colors behind his eyelids and he can feel John smiling at the edges, and Sherlock doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of this, of these kinds of unexpected moments, and they kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss, and–-

“There’s tea, if you two are interested in anything but each other,” Mrs Hudson interrupts. John’s hand flies out of the back of Sherlock’s trousers, but by the neat little obligatorily indignant “ _hmmph!_ ” from the doorway they both know she saw it anyway.

They trade mischievous grins and poke each other in the ribs, giggling, and follow Mrs Hudson into the kitchen, where she’s busying herself with the kettle. Sherlock snags one of the round almond snowballs off the plate on the table and pops it into his mouth--nutty, buttery, almost crunchy but not quite, the icing sugar bursting over his tongue. The white dust sticks to his fingertips and when John comes up and bumps into his shoulder, Sherlock reaches over and smears it over John’s cheek.

“Hey!” John protests, smacking his fingers away.

“Oh, it’s a good look for you,” Sherlock says as seriously as possible, then he gestures dramatically as though he’s showing John off like a piece of art. “I call it, Elderly Chap in Dust,” he declares.

Mrs Hudson giggles, and John feigns offense and grabs Sherlock around the waist, hauling him over to the worktop. “Oh, I’ll show you elderly,” John says, but they’re laughing so hard that John can barely get a grip on him and he barely manages to hold Sherlock there as he reaches for the bowl Mrs Hudson is rolling her snowballs in, grabbing a handful of icing sugar.

“No, no, no, no!” Sherlock shouts, breathless with laughter and the half-arsed struggle to get away, but John manages to pin him in place with his hips and thighs and grins wickedly at him, then dumps the whole lot over Sherlock’s head.

Sherlock has the brief sensation of being inside a snow globe as the dust settles around him and he’s aware that he’s making a horribly unattractive face of affronted surprise at John and yet he can’t stop himself from continuing to make it. He must be absolutely coated in icing sugar, effectively frosted from curls to shoulders; he can feel it clumping in his eyelashes, drifting down the lines of his cheekbones.

John chuckles and lifts up off his heels to kiss the tip of Sherlock’s nose. “There,” he announces. “Entitled: Genius in a Winter Wonderland.”

Then he kisses Sherlock on the mouth with the giggle still bubbling behind his lips, quick and teasing. Mrs Hudson ducks her head to look for something apparently all the way in the back of the fridge, so Sherlock tilts his head and kisses John just a little deeper, running his hands down John’s ribs, shifting his weight against the worktop to slip down, evening the height difference a bit. John hums in appreciation, smoothing his thumbs over Sherlock’s hips. He swipes his tongue across Sherlock’s bottom lip, making a soft sound in the back of his throat at the taste of icing sugar.

Then Mrs Hudson clears her throat pointedly, and John steps back immediately, flushing pink and laughing. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Honestly,” Mrs Hudson reprimands through her smile. “At my time of life.” She shakes her head and then hands John a mug of tea. “I know he’s lovely, but at least make an effort.”

Sherlock turns and shakes his hair out into the sink; he’ll have to take a shower later. “This _is_ us making an effort, Hudders,” he points out dryly. “Believe me when I say that particular jumper of John’s tests the strength of my self-control.”

Mrs Hudson swats his arm and then hands him a mug as well. “Behave yourselves.”

Across her tiny kitchen, John gives him a wink and wiggles his hips in a way that suggests Sherlock might have some assistance in his shower that evening if he keeps talking about John’s jumpers. Sherlock ducks his head to take another sip and his tea is laced with a hint of icing sugar. There are sloppy fingerprints all over their shirts where they’d run their hands over each other, left behind like a treasure map, and John has a smudge of sugar on the corner of his lip and the side of his nose from where he rubbed against Sherlock, and Sherlock is perfectly incandescent with happiness at it all.

He used to have afternoons alone upstairs, and he used to have afternoons in strange houses drugged out of his mind, and he used to have afternoons hiding in the back corners of school libraries, nursing black eyes, but now he has John, and now he has sugar-dusted afternoons with gentle kisses, and Sherlock wants to capture it, he wants to keep it, he wants to _know_ that he can have it forever.

He’ll ask. He has to at least ask.

And maybe he’ll back it up with another pass for the shooting range, just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Icing sugar is another name for powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar, which is a kind of sugar that has been milled so finely that it is turned into a dust. [Almond snowballs](http://natashaskitchen.com/2015/11/12/almond-snowball-cookies-recipe/) are a type of cookie, sometimes called Russian teacakes, Mexican wedding or Italian wedding cookies.


	4. Christmas Cards

He’s going to ask John to marry him.

The thought makes Sherlock feel giddy and anxious and impatient and raw all at once, and he can’t stop smiling. He’s going to ask John to _marry_ him. He’s going to ask _John._

He needs a plan. The logistics are overwhelming; there are a dozen different details to account for and every single one of them creates a million exciting and beautiful and nerve-wracking combinations and possibilities.

Sherlock doesn’t know much about doing this. John does; he’s done this before. Planned this sort of thing. Sherlock tries not to think about that. He had heard most of John’s proposal, years ago, and it had been awkward and resigned and horrible and he had wanted to save John from it. He had thought he was, actually, by interrupting just at the pivotal moment, but John is nothing if not bullheaded.

God, Sherlock doesn’t want a repeat of that. Nothing like that. The exact opposite of that.

They should be at home, he thinks. Being together here has been the hallmark of everything good in Sherlock’s life, and he thinks in John’s, too, and they should be here. 221B is the foundation of the life they’ve built these last few months: their phoenix rising from the ashes of the past.

Sherlock stops pacing around the sitting room and looks over the flat, taking in the details and deducing a shared life in all of them, a casual chaos of this-goes-here and these-go-there that they both know and navigate easily.

He’s got an experiment spread out over the kitchen table, half a dozen petri dishes filled with gravel samples, and there’s a picture of Sherlock smiling like he’s just eaten a lemon cut from the newspaper taped to the back of the microscope. “So I can actually look at you when you’re talking to me,” John had teased, and Sherlock had been a grump about it but he hasn’t taken it down because it makes John smile over breakfast.

Behind him, the desk is cluttered with old newspapers and papers and receipts, and there’s a stack of books on the floor by the door which is almost half as tall as John now and still growing. On the bookshelf John’s collection of old _British Medical Journals_ are mixed up with Sherlock’s copies of _Biomaterial Science,_ and there is a jumper of hotly debated ownership with a stretched out neck tossed over the arm of the sofa.

In front of the fireplace, their two chairs are pushed closer together than normal; Sherlock had scooted his forward the other night so he could prop his feet up on John’s lap and sneak them under his blanket. John’s book sits on the side table, with a tissue being used for a bookmark shoved just a little under halfway through, along with a half a cup of old tea John had abandoned in pursuit of discovering just how sensitive Sherlock’s feet really were, and what exactly Sherlock could do with his impossibly long toes.

The skull on the mantel is wearing a Santa hat, and taped to the mirror above it are a handful of Christmas cards they’ve gotten in the post. John saves the ones that are addressed to both of them and hangs them up like a proud parent, like having _John & Sherlock_ written inside them is something they have accomplished.

Sherlock wants to ask John to marry him in front of them. He wants these cards, with their _John & Sherlocks_ and _Sherlock & Johns,_ to stand witness along with the messes of their everyday lives when he asks John if he might commit to a lifetime of unambiguous ampersands.

He’ll stand right here and wait by the window for John to come over to him, maybe playing something on the violin. At night, it has to be at night–-maybe Christmas eve, maybe Christmas night itself, with the room lit by just the lamp in the corner and a fire, hushed ambers and reds, and John brilliant in the gold light and a cardigan. Sherlock will play something soft and romantic, and eventually John will come over and trail fingertips along Sherlock’s waist in the way that means it’s unbearable to not to be touching anymore, and then Sherlock will take both of John’s hands in his, and kiss him as gently as Sherlock can possibly manage, and he won’t get down on one knee, no. They’re equals in this. He’ll have the ring out of the box already and tucked into a pocket, and he’ll just slide it into John’s hand, and he’ll say-–

“Sherlock? You home?”

The flat jolts abruptly back into mid-morning sunlight. Sherlock clears his throat and tries not to blush furiously, the vision of proposing to John still lingering at the edges of his mind. In the kitchen, the real John tosses his keys onto the table and sets a couple of grocery bags down, then he looks around and spots Sherlock in the middle of the sitting room, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown, and the grin that splits his face looks like it almost hurts it’s so big.

“You look cosy,” John says, curious and perhaps a bit suggestive, but Sherlock can hardly hear him over the noise of his heart beating so so fast from where it’s fluttering in his throat-–John is here and flesh and blood and real and Sherlock is _going to ask John to marry him,_ and suddenly the reality of it is hammering against his ribs and he can barely stop himself from blurting out the words right then.

John comes over and pecks his cheek, dipping one hand under his t-shirt and stroking at the delicate skin between Sherlock’s hip and ribs. “All right?” he asks when Sherlock doesn’t respond, just stands there staring at him like a fool as John’s grin starts to fade with concern, and then Sherlock comes back into himself.

“Yes, fine, I just–-bit of an odd morning,” Sherlock says, and he gives a quick kiss to John’s mouth. John’s grin returns full force, and they trade one more kiss before John leaves off and goes to put the shop away, scolding Sherlock for the bowl of calf brains in the fridge because Sherlock didn’t put a proper lid on it, and Sherlock wants to smile and scream and laugh, because this is their life, this is their mess, this is the mish-mash sum of all their parts, and he’s going to ask John to marry him right in the middle of it.

He’s going to need a ring.


	5. Ghosts of Christmas Past

_It’s the light,_ Sherlock thinks. _It’s the light that changes the rain. Changes the peacefulness of it._

In the early ashen dawn, the rain beats unsteadily against the windows and Sherlock closes his eyes again. Sometimes the rain comes through the sun and the peace is free and simple; sometimes the sky turns black and the deluge washes out the rest of the world into a sort of safe, snug seclusion. And sometimes the rain comes down like this, grey and hopeless, and the peace seems vast and empty, like frost and bare branches scratching at the sky.

John is a warm and heavy weight at his back, though, and the melancholy sits loosely on Sherlock’s chest instead of wrapping tightly around his ribs the way it used to, so Sherlock sinks back into the bed and lets it linger. It’s an old, familiar feeling, dusty now with disuse, but things like these are sometimes worth remembering and Sherlock doesn’t really want to forget.

It used to fit over him like a second skin, that sadness. That crushing despair. It used to feel eternal. It used to feel _deserved._

Sherlock never wants to forget it, the way that misery had felt, because he built it for himself with the inherent wrongness of _alone protects me._ Oh, of course, there were other factors, other people and all their problems and histories and impulses, but when they arrived at Sherlock’s feet he shut everyone out and made the decisions about how to handle them by himself. He carried the weight of those choices on his own and every single one put him on the outside, alone, and through them he had created the bone-deep sorrow he wore in penance, unable and unwilling to find a way out of it.

He created it for John, too. That sadness.

It’s different now, and John is here, and things are so incredibly good that Sherlock can hardly believe he doesn’t dream each day into existence. But he wants to remember the way it felt. He wants to remember the price he paid for a prize no one even wanted, and he wants to remember that when you sacrifice yourself, you also sacrifice the people who love you.

He learned that lesson last Christmas and Sherlock doesn’t ever want to forget the look on John’s face, crumpling on the patio of a dead man as he tries to say Sherlock’s name and fails, because that was when Sherlock knew. He hadn’t known, before then, that there was anyone that would have to bear the sacrifice along with him. Or maybe he had chosen not to know.

Behind him, John begins to snuffle into his pillow and stretch sleep-soft muscles, his toes skimming along the line of Sherlock’s calf. Sherlock swallows and blinks into his pillow, waiting for John to realise that he’s already awake.

It doesn’t take long. John can always tell.

There’s a bit of a shuffle and some grunting as John rolls over in the bed, and when he wraps an arm around Sherlock’s waist and pulls him back into the curl of his body, Sherlock goes willingly. John is a little sweaty from the heat under the covers, but the way their skin sticks against each other is a visceral comfort. It feels like even the most basic parts of them are clinging to each other: need beyond consciousness.

John kisses the back of Sherlock’s shoulder, then the side of his neck. Sherlock wants to say _good morning,_ but the words don’t quite form in his mouth, and after a moment John shifts his elbow out so he can raise his head and rest it in his hand, looking down on Sherlock.

“What’s wrong?” Sherlock can hear the furrow of John’s brow in his whisper. If he knew how to explain it, this urge to let the melancholy overtake him for a while, he would tell John in an instant, because he thinks John would understand.

“Nothing,” Sherlock says instead.

There’s a few moments of quiet with just the rain against the window. John strokes his fingers over Sherlock’s belly and watches him blink for a while. Then he shifts back down, sliding his arm under Sherlock’s pillow and settling his head on the edge of it, nose practically buried in Sherlock’s hair. “Nothing in particular, you mean.”

John understands him better than he understands himself, and Sherlock swallows, and swallows, and swallows. When he speaks again, his mouth is dry. “Yes. I don’t know. The rain.” He thinks about the sadness the way it had been last year, about John and Mary, and the years before, spent alone with that sadness. “Do you know, we’ve never had a happy Christmas together? This might be the first one.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” John protests, and Sherlock can feel one side of John’s mouth tilt up into a soft smile against his skin. “This will _definitely_ be a happy one.”

Sherlock thinks of the question he’s planning to ask John this Christmas, the one that’s been burning with nerves at the back of his mind, and hopes John is right.


	6. Naughty and Nice

“All that pinging over there had better not be you terrorising Lestrade.”

There’s a flutter of newspaper as John flips down the top half of the page to glare at Sherlock, and Sherlock automatically shifts his hand to cover the name on the outgoing text in a gut reaction. “Not terrorising. Explaining.”

John sets the newspaper to the side and gets up, coming over to Sherlock at the desk. “If you’re doing that irritating mysterious hint thing again, it’s terrorising.” He snags the phone out from under Sherlock’s hand and reads the most recent text out loud, resting his bum on the corner of the desk. “‘If you want to find the killer, you’ll need to go swimming with the fishes.’” He gives Sherlock a disapproving look. “The Thames, or an aquarium?”

Sherlock sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Could be a pool.”

“No fish in pools. Come on. Where’s he got to look?”

For a moment Sherlock considers not telling him, but John shifts his eyebrows into something more pleading than demanding and Sherlock caves. “Aquarium. Sea Life London. Suspect feeds aquatic animals. Definitely octopi, at least, but he probably participates in a variety of duties.”

John taps a message into the phone. “You know, you keep this up and you’ll end up on Santa’s shit list, get nothing but coal for Christmas.” He drops the phone back into Sherlock’s lap and kisses his forehead, smoothing back Sherlock’s fringe affectionately despite his admonishing tone, then slides off the desk and walks toward the fireplace.

“If I relied on Santa Claus to bring me Christmas presents,” Sherlock says disdainfully, a bit put out at having lost his game, “I’d have a lot more problems than the fear of a bit of coal.”

Besides, Sherlock isn’t hoping for presents this Christmas. He’s hoping for a _yes._

It’s too much to think about right now. He can’t spent the next three weeks worrying about it or he’ll drive himself mad, which is exactly why he’d been spending the morning driving Lestrade mad instead. Sherlock picks up his phone and pulls up his texts to see the message John just sent.

_Don’t get wet._

Sherlock laughs. “Is this supposed to discourage me?” he asks cheekily, and looks up to find John leaning on the mantelpiece with the skull’s Santa hat on his head, eyebrow quirked, hand on his hip. His shirt has drawn up on the other side, from putting his elbow up on the mantel, exposing the skin of his stomach along the waistband of his jeans. John has one side of his mouth tilted into a smile, eyes half-hooded, clear suggestion written on his face.

“Not really,” John says. “It’s supposed to get you off Lestrade’s back and onto yours.”

For a moment, there’s a pregnant, awkward sort of pause as Sherlock stares and takes in what John’s just said, then they both start laughing. “That was a terrible line,” Sherlock reprimands.

“It’s going to work though,” John promises, grinning lazily. “I swear. Come here. You want to be on Santa’s naughty list?” He taps the faux-fur edging on the Santa hat. “Come earn your place.”

Sherlock stands, letting his dressing gown slip from his shoulders a little. “That was an even worse line,” he tells John. “Have you got many more of them?”

“Not yet,” John says, pushing off the mantelpiece and coming over to Sherlock, pushing up Sherlock’s button-down shirt out of his waistband and skimming his hands underneath, along the line of Sherlock’s trousers. “Might think of one later, though.”

Sherlock leans in, brushing his nose against the side of John’s, holding his mouth just centimetres away from John’s. “If you can still think after the next thirty seconds,” Sherlock whispers, “I’m definitely doing something wrong.” And he presses forward, presses his mouth to John’s. John immediately opens to him, and Sherlock licks into his mouth, making it filthy and sloppy exactly the way he knows John likes it.

John groans and pulls Sherlock closer against him, and when he breaks away to kiss down the line of Sherlock’s neck, the fuzzy edges of the Santa hat rub along Sherlock’s cheek, making him giggle. John bites down. “Stop giggling. This is a very serious, very sexy moment.”

Sherlock giggles harder so John sucks harder, bruising the spot on Sherlock’s neck.

When John starts undoing the buttons on Sherlock’s shirt, Sherlock finally has to reach up and snatch the Santa hat off John’s head and toss it away, or else nobody is ever going to get hard. John growls a little, but doesn’t stop, smearing kisses down Sherlock’s chest; Sherlock feels his growl reverberating through his ribcage and thinks no, actually, he’ll not really have any trouble getting hard at all.

He pulls John back up, kissing him roughly, just a bit of teeth, tugging at John’s long-sleeved shirt and struggling with the fact that in order to get it off, he’d have to stop kissing John for a moment. Eventually John shoves him away, pulling the shirt off and managing the button and zip on his jeans at the same time. Sherlock takes the hint and and works open his own trousers, but he doesn’t quite manage to undo the buttons on his shirt before John is back on him, hot and insistent.

“We really shouldn’t have sex in the sitting room,” Sherlock says, breathless, and John goes back to sucking on his neck. Same spot. It’ll be maroon by the time he’s finished.

“Is that your conscience kicking in?” John asks. “You want to be on the nice list after all?”

“I didn’t realise this was a competition,” Sherlock snorts, but the effect is lost in the noise he makes when John dips his hand into open vee of Sherlock’s trousers and finds his cock, now almost fully hard.

“More fun that way,” John says. He pulls Sherlock’s prick out of his pants, exposing him to the cool air of the flat, and strokes. Sherlock almost doubles over; his arousal spools thick and golden around the base of his spine, and John chuckles a little. “Like that, do you?”

Sherlock catches his breath and pulls John’s hands away, then maneuvers John back over to the desk and pushes him against it. “All right, then, it’s a competition,” he agrees, pushing John’s jeans and his pants off his hips and halfway down his thighs. “But I never lose.” And he drops to his knees.

John’s cock is thick and flushed, a drop of pre-come already pearling at the tip, and Sherlock has to wonder how long he’s been nursing some simmering arousal from behind his paper. Above him, John clutches at the edge of the desk, and moans, without even being touched.

“You want me on the naughty list?” Sherlock whispers, pitching his voice as lowly as possible and making sure that every word ghosts over John’s skin. “I can do that. I can be really . . . very . . . naughty.”

John’s cock jumps at the first touch of Sherlock’s tongue, a little kitten lick at the head. He licks again, then slides his mouth over John’s cock, massaging his tongue along John’s foreskin, using his mouth to push back the folds and expose more of the head. John is salty sweet and base, like sweat and home, and Sherlock loves it. He runs his hands up and down John’s thighs and sucks him, getting him good and wet, bobbing his head fast and then slow, undulating his tongue along the shaft and then circling the head, listening to the cacophony of bitten-off noises wrenching out of John’s chest with satisfaction.

One of John’s hands lands in his hair, encouraging Sherlock to look up at him. John’s mouth hangs open, glistening with saliva where he’s been licking his lips, and his eyes are dark and needy. “I love that,” John says, “Christ, Sherlock. God, you’re good.”

Sherlock smirks around his mouthful and draws John deeper, using a free hand to make up for the area he can’t quite get in. Now that John has started, he can’t stop the tumble of words, increasingly filthy and desperate as Sherlock relentlessly leads him toward orgasm. “Fuck, you’re amazing, Sherlock, you’re–-on your knees, your mouth, your fucking mouth, god, I just–touch yourself, are you touching yourself? Jesus, Sherlock, ah, ah–-”

John’s bollocks draw up, his hips shifting and rolling his cock deeper into Sherlock’s mouth; Sherlock lets him, loosens his jaw and lets John fuck his mouth as John groans, “Is this okay, is this, stop me if it’s not.” Sherlock reaches for his own cock, pulling at himself hard and fast, trying to match John’s rhythm. Then John is coming, coming down Sherlock’s throat, a burst of salt and a little bit of sour, and Sherlock swallows around him as well as he can.

Boneless, John slides down onto the floor, spreading his legs around Sherlock so Sherlock is on his knees between them, and watches as Sherlock finishes stroking himself off, panting, “You’re gorgeous, yeah, do that, Sherlock come on, put that twist on the end you like so much.”

John’s encouragement, slurred with satisfaction, gives Sherlock exactly what he needs, and he comes into his hand, making a total mess of the rug and John’s jeans as well. When he’s finished, he drops, shaking and shuddering, into John’s stomach, carefully avoiding John’s soft prick, and John immediately puts his arms around him.

After a few long, trembling moments, John begins to shift beneath him. “We better get off this floor before Mrs Hudson comes up,” John whispers into Sherlock’s hair, stroking a soothing hand down his back.

“Hmm. Now you’re the one wants to be on the nice list,” Sherlock grunts into his chest. He’s right though, they really should not be here half-naked on the sitting room floor, but Sherlock wants a moment before they move.

“I don’t mind being on Santa’s shit list,” John agrees. “But she’s a hell of a lot scarier than a bit of coal, isn’t she?”

Sherlock huffs a laugh against John’s skin. “Let’s go take a shower,” he says, “But I definitely won.”

They giggle, righting themselves and looking for a bit of shirt to wipe up the majority of Sherlock’s mess before it sets in and really ruins the rug. “All right,” John concedes. “But I get to have another go at it later.”


	7. The Nutcracker

“Come on, come on come on come on, we’re going to be late!”

“John, where are we–-Lestrade’s not texting me back-–”

“Come _on,_ we’ll miss the suspect–-”

London glitters around them as they run, John the rare two steps ahead, his hand clutching tightly around Sherlock’s. It had rained earlier, and the street lamps and the holiday lights strung up across the streets and into the trees reflect back at them on the wet pavement, catching them in a kaleidoscope of colour.

John had come home that night in a rush, shouting about a case and intercepting a suspect, waving his phone, and they’d taken off, but when Sherlock texted Lestrade he hadn’t texted back. Now John has him by the hand, weaving in and out of the crowds on the pavement, full of people out meandering and enjoying the unseasonably warm evening. Sherlock wonders if this is how John feels sometimes when it’s Sherlock on the trail, high on second-hand adrenalin and unsure yet what was going to happen.

It feels _brilliant._

They round a corner and the great stone facade of the London Coliseum comes into view, the lighted entrance bright and warm, illuminating the banners above proclaiming the current performance: _The Nutcracker._ John pulls up short and turns, holding Sherlock by both hands, smile split wide. “Okay, don’t be mad,” he says, “but I lied. There’s no case.”

Sherlock stares. “There’s–what? There’s no case?”

“Nope. There’s no case.” John laughs at Sherlock’s look of confused disbelief. “Sorry, sorry, maybe I shouldn’t lie about that. But you’ll like this, I think. We’re seeing the show.”

Sherlock blinks. “ _The Nutcracker?_ But you hate ballet.”

“Yeah, and you hate Tchaikovsky, but your mum told me last year that when you were little you always wanted to dance as the Mouse Tsar, and I thought it might be fun to go together. And we’ve got pretty damn good seats and we’re going to be late, so let’s go.” Sherlock starts to stammer out another protest, but John ignores him and takes off again, bursting with excitement and tugging Sherlock along, completely oblivious to the fact that Sherlock is suddenly having a hard time breathing around the swelling of his heart in his chest.

John was taking him to the ballet, to _the Nutcracker,_ and Sherlock _had_ loved this ballet as a child. He had thought, in some childish understanding of the world, that if he were the Mouse Tsar, he would not be put off by something as little as a _shoe,_ and well, he wanted to know how else the story could go. What if the mice won? What if the Prince were killed? What would happen to Clara then? The possibilities seemed endless.

And John remembered this. He had paid attention to a no-doubt rambling story retold affectionately by his mum almost a year ago and remembered it. John went through all this effort, researched the show, bought tickets, coordinated with Lestrade, probably ran himself in circles trying to make sure it would be a surprise, a chance to relive some of that childhood magic, all _for Sherlock._

Sherlock feels like his throat is closing up. No one had ever done something like this for him before. The kinds of surprises he has grown used to have all been horrible, really, truly wretched–a fake identity blowing a hole in his chest, a triple threat and long drop with a sudden stop–except for John.

John is the only good surprise Sherlock could ever remember getting, and John is a surprise Sherlock gets anew almost every single day.

So Sherlock quietly falls apart and tries desperately not to show it, blinking very quickly and laughing with more breathe than voice, suddenly off-kilter. John keeps his hand around Sherlock’s, though, and pulls him through the glass doors of the London Coliseum, through the Edwardian lobby and up the grand staircase into the three-tiered auditorium, all crushed red velvet and gilded accents. Above them, the domed ceiling lifts and vaults skyward, and Sherlock feels like he could fill the whole incredible space of it all and then some with the love he has for John Watson. The stuck, thrumming feeling under his breastbone could fill all the cracks and crannies and swooping open spaces, if only Sherlock could bring it out of his chest and make it tangible.

“You all right?” John asks once they’ve settled in their seats, patting Sherlock’s hand. “Did I surprise you?”

Sherlock looks over and gapes at him, at John’s eyes made soft by his reassuring smile, and when he takes a breath to say something, it sounds shaky and unsteady. After a moment, though, Sherlock manages to swallow and say, “Yes, um. Yes. John. Thank you.”

John’s smile flickers into a thousand watts for a brief moment and he sets his hand on Sherlock’s knee and squeezes. “I love you,” John says, and he leans over to kiss Sherlock’s cheek before turning back toward the stage, and Sherlock has to sit back in his seat and look at John’s hand resting on his leg until the blur begins to clear and the music starts.

The ballet is beautiful, the stage set with whimsical modern flair, choreographed to perfection and danced with emotion and excitement and curiosity. But John steals the show, spending the night leaning forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, captivated, captivating Sherlock, and Sherlock thinks he is _spectacular._

It’s easy to melt away the rest of the audience, to melt away the full orchestra and the ensemble, Clara in her nightgown, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince in all their fairy tale glories. It’s easy to shift the scene and imagine what it would be like, standing center stage with John, spotlights burning down on them and the vast, silent auditorium sweeping around them. It’s easy to look at John, enchanted by the ballet, and imagine him looking at Sherlock like that, like Sherlock had caught the stars in the sky and strung them along the stage backdrops, pinpoints of light in the dark blue distance.

It’s easy to kiss him in this private dream, standing center stage at the crux of Sherlock’s heart and mind, and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him, until John understands.

When it’s over, they wait for most of the crowd to clear and then kiss there in their seats, gentle and soft, murmuring to each other what were the best parts and who was the best onstage, and did you hear that out-of-tune cello in act II, just briefly in the beginning, and they kiss between the columns on their way out of the auditorium, and at the top of the staircase in the bright marble lobby, like they are holding court above the crowds.

“I love you,” Sherlock says, as seriously as he can possibly manage, and he then says it again so he doesn’t accidentally blurt out _marry me_ instead (it needs to be 221B it needs to be Christmas it needs to have a ring it needs to be _perfect_ ). “I love you.”

John grins up at him and kisses the back of his hand and says, “Come on, you. Angelo’s got a table for us, and you know he hates to be kept waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the Nutcracker, Clara is a child at Christmastime who receives a Nutcracker from her mysterious uncle Drosselmeyer, a toymaker. Clara sneaks downstairs in the night to check on the Nutcracker, and is attacked by a horde of mice, led by the Mouse Tsar; the Nutcracker then comes to life as the Nutcracker Prince, who fights the mice. The mice are defeated when Clara throws her shoe at the Mouse Tsar, giving the Nutcracker Prince the advantage. The Nutcracker Prince then takes Clara through a moonlight forest to the Land of Sweets, and introduces her to the Sugar Plum Fairy, and they dance the night away in celebration.


	8. Baking

Garlic, onion, and olive oil sizzles together on the stovetop as Sherlock adds a couple of pinches of salt to a pot of water set on to boil. He waits a few moments, watching the onions begin to soften and turn gold, and takes some small comfort in the idea that no matter how things change, no matter how drastically or how quickly, he can rely on this to always be the same.

Sherlock reaches for a sprig of rosemary and lets his eyes drift over to the sitting room as he strips the stem, to where he can just see the grey-gold of John’s head just visible over the top of his chair, and in the dark window beyond, his unblinking stare.

He’s still not quite sure what happened. They’d had a fantastic night, the night before: _the Nutcracker,_ and almost half-dozen shared small plates at Angelo’s, feeding each other bits of spicy stuffed artichokes and lamb meatballs dusted with mint just to be obnoxious, and then falling into bed, too full for anything more than lazy hands on each other, stroking things to a giggling, teasing completion. Even this morning, Sherlock had gotten up early, but when he’d searched out John’s cheek from among the blankets for a kiss and a whispered, _going to Bart’s,_ John had tilted his head up, eyes closed, so Sherlock could plant his lips on his cheek and both eyelids for good measure, smiling sleepily and nearly still dreaming.

But when Sherlock had come home, some three hours ago, John had been sitting in his chair, ankles crossed and face tight. He’d not responded to Sherlock’s hello except for a vague sort of hum. The book in his hands had been open to page 152.

It still was.

Sherlock knew what that meant. They both had pasts filled with horrors and Sherlock knew what it was like to lose yourself so fully in the uncontrolled repetition, moment after moment looping through your mind even as you tried to forget, and there are so many things that could be haunting John’s memories today. Afghanistan. Mary, with her gun and her betrayal shot through Sherlock’s chest, and her ex-boyfriend David with tears in his eyes and DNA test results in his hands.

It could be Sherlock’s own bloodied body, on the pavement outside Bart’s, on the carpets in Magnussen’s penthouse. Cardiac arrest in the sitting room. _There are things I’ve always wanted to say, and never have._ Slipping his hands up under Sherlock’s shirt and finding scar tissue in thick, ropy knots.

There isn’t much Sherlock can do, really. He takes his helplessness out on the Italian sausages, ripping away their casings with much more strength than is really warranted and crumbling the meat along with some beef mince into the pan with the onions and garlic, then he pours in a healthy amount of good red wine and watches John out of the corner of his eye.

John _hates_ being coddled; he would lash out, angry and snarling, if Sherlock were to go over and pet his hair and ask what he needs, which is what Sherlock really wants to do. Instead Sherlock has to rely on the fragrant aroma that’s filling the flat and the sound of him tinkering around the kitchen to eventually sink into John’s consciousness and draw him out, reminding him that the past is gone and the future is spread out wide ahead of them.

John will come back to him. Sherlock just has to wait.

Lasagne is the perfect thing to make in times like these. There’s something rustic and earthy and cosy about it, something that warms the very deepest insides of a person’s being. Sherlock makes lasagne the way his grandmum taught him, with red wine and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes cooked into the meat ragu and wilted spinach cooked in between the layers. He cracks an egg into a bowl of ricotta, throws in a handful of parmesan and a dash of nutmeg, and then stirs in Grandmum’s secret ingredient for a thick, vibrant filling: cottage cheese.

Untraditional, perhaps controversial even, but Sherlock _loves_ it.

Once the meat has been browned, the red wine reduced and the crushed tomatoes added in and cooked down a little, Sherlock starts layering everything into the lasagne dish. The meat ragu spreads out along the bottom, then gets topped with the al dente noodles.

In the living room, John’s book closes. Sherlock slathers the ricotta-cottage cheese mix over the noodles, then lays out round slices of fresh mozzarella, then spreads the wilted spinach.

John coughs, clears his throat; Sherlock can see the top of his head moving around a little bit as he takes in his surroundings. Ragu, noodles, cheese mix, mozzarella, spinach, and again, building thin layers until the dish is full.

John’s chair creaks as he shifts forward, probably leaning his head on his hands, then there’s another, bigger creak. The lasagne dish goes into the oven and the timer is set for thirty minutes, and when Sherlock turns back around, John is there, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s torso and burying his face into Sherlock’s chest.

For a while, no one says anything. Sherlock waits and waits, watching the timer on the oven click down: 30:00, 28:00, 25:00. John’s hands clench along the small of Sherlock’s back but he breathes slow and even, and Sherlock hopes John can feel the steady beat of Sherlock’s heart. _I’m here. I’m here. I’m here._

Eventually John’s voice comes from some place near Sherlock’s middle. “Lasagne?”

Sherlock smiles a little, even though John can’t see it. “My grandmum’s recipe.”

John rubs his face back and forth across Sherlock’s shirt; the buttons catch on his nose and Sherlock tries to contain his snort of laughter, but then he feels John giggling against him too, breath hot through the fabric. “I love your grandmum’s recipe.”

“I know,” Sherlock says, kissing John’s head. “I’ve been trying to seduce you with it for years.”

“Mm. Next time just serve it with a condom.”

“That wouldn’t have worked.”

“Might’ve done. Maybe serve it in nothing but a dressing gown.”

Sherlock makes a considering noise. “That might have worked, but eating hot pasta bare doesn’t sound like the best plan.”

John chuckles. “I think the point is that you wouldn’t have been doing much eating.”

“Hmm. Shame to let a good lasagne go to waste, though.” Sherlock rests his cheek on the top of John’s head and runs his hands down John’s back, holding and soothing. The silence in the flat feels better this time, less tense, less black, and John takes a deep breath through his nose. Sherlock probably smells like onion and red wine and basil, but John just squeezes Sherlock tighter so it’s probably fine.

With five minutes left on the oven timer, John finally lifts his head and pecks a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, eyes downcast. “Sorry,” he says. “Just kind of a rough day.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” Sherlock murmurs, bringing up a hand to John’s jaw, stroking his thumb over his cheek. John presses his cheek into Sherlock’s touch and looks up, meeting his gaze. “As long as you’re all right.”

“Yeah,” John says, and he gives Sherlock a bit of a trembling smile and steps back, letting Sherlock go. “Yeah, I think so. Did you save any of that wine to have with dinner?”

He’s not really as okay as Sherlock would like him to be, but Sherlock lets him brush it off for now. They’ll eat the lasagne, and drink a glass of wine, and bump shoulders as they do the dishes and tidy up a little. Then Sherlock will build the fire up big and turn off all the lights and fold John into his arms, and maybe John will tell him what he’s been thinking about all day, and maybe he won’t, but he’ll know Sherlock is there, and he’ll know Sherlock loves him.

It’s not a solution, and it’s not perfect, but sometimes life is messy and sometimes life hurts, and when the ache gets heavy in John’s chest, it’s Sherlock that John reaches for, and for now, Sherlock thinks, that’s enough.


	9. Making a Christmas List

Sixteen days to Christmas, and Sherlock still hasn’t gotten John a ring.

Traditionally, of course, men don’t wear engagement rings. John hadn’t worn one before, not until after the ceremony, and then he’d worn a plain silver band that was too heavy for his small hands and too prone to scratching in his regular day-to-day routines.

But there’s got to be an engagement ring, because that’s how people get engaged, and Sherlock doesn’t want any wires to get crossed or meanings lost. He doesn’t want to ask if John would marry him, and then have John go off thinking that it was a hypothetical question about somedays and maybes. Sherlock wants to be perfectly crystal clear about what it is that he’s asking. They’ve both had more than enough of miscommunications and misunderstandings, and he won’t risk it. There’s got to be a ring.

And it’s got be a ring John will want to wear. Maybe not right away (please, oh _please_ right away), maybe not until after they get married (oh god, would John really want that? _to get married?_ ), but when the time comes, it’s got to be a ring that John will be able to wear all the time–-lightweight, durable, classic.

Sherlock eyes John across the room. It’s been a lazy afternoon, and Sherlock’s been spread out on the sofa for hours while John browses the internet, sorts his finances, and does a lot of other boring things. Right now, he’s tapping out a new blog post that Sherlock suspects will be titled something ridiculous like “The Ginger Gang,” and he’ll be busy with that for a while, so Sherlock tilts his phone away from John’s line of view and opens an incognito tab on his web app to research available ring materials. There are lists and examples, comparison charts and specialty websites, but nothing quite looks _realistic._

He’ll have to make an appointment to see a jeweler in person, but fortunately, there’s one that owes Sherlock a favour. In fact, there’s three.

John gets up from the desk and wanders into the kitchen, probably to make a cup of tea. Maybe grab a couple of biscuits. Sherlock shoots off a couple of texts, changing the contact names into something discrete as he goes, and then immediately deleting the text threads so John won’t be able to see what Sherlock asked if he happens to pick up Sherlock’s phone.

John comes back into the sitting room, nibbling on a biscuit. “Getting us a case?” He nods at Sherlock’s phone.

“Sorry. Just solved it.” Sherlock tucks the mobile back into the pocket of his dressing gown. “Done with that blog post?”

“Yeah. I changed my password again too, give you a bit of a challenge to hack in and edit it all up.” John leans his bum on the sofa arm at the other end and pats Sherlock’s foot. “Thinking about running out and getting some shopping done. We got those stockings for Mrs Hudson, but she was just saying the other day that she needs a new set of baking sheets so I thought we could do that as well.”

“Well, I’d hate to be without scones for want of a couple of baking sheets,” Sherlock agrees cheekily, and thinks if he wants to keep his plans a surprise, he should act like he doesn’t have any plans at all. He nudges John’s bum with his foot. “What about you, hm? What do you want for Christmas?”

John puts on an exaggerated thinking face. “Well, we really need a new toaster,” he suggests.

“I asked what you wanted, not what we needed.” He nudges John’s bum again, and John moves from the arm of the sofa to about the middle, scooching his bum against Sherlock’s hip and making room for himself.

“What do I want? Hmm. A clean kitchen.” He leans in and kisses Sherlock on the mouth, hovering a little and looking over him. Sherlock grins back. “Let’s see. I don’t really know, I suppose. I guess a new watch, mine has been a little funny since the case with the mud. Maybe one of those watches that counts up your steps and your heart rates and that sort of thing, make sure I’m not getting fat and lazy in my dotage.”

Sherlock reaches up and tickles along John’s ribs. “Mm, I don’t think so. Lazy, perhaps.” He leaves his hands on John’s torso, rubbing circles through his shirt. The sturdiness of John’s body feels good in his hands. “What else?”

“Um. Let’s see. Some of those organisation file folders for that mess on the desk.” John gestures, but doesn’t look away from Sherlock. “You could probably find me a good book or two.” He kisses Sherlock again, slower this time, lingering a little. When he pulls back, he smirks. “You could get us a candy-cane striped dildo and some peppermint lube.”

Sherlock chuckles, low and heated. “You’re not putting peppermint lube up my arse.”

The kiss this time is deeper, longer. “You said anything about your arse?” John says. “Maybe I like a little burn.”

“You don’t.” More kisses. John’s hands are starting to get a little investigative along the hem of Sherlock’s t-shirt.

“All right, no peppermint lube,” John concedes, standing up and then throwing one knee over Sherlock’s legs, coming back to straddle Sherlock’s thighs, tapping his hands on Sherlock’s belly like a drum. “What about you? What do you want for Christmas?”

Sherlock pauses. He thinks about the appointment he’s made for tomorrow morning. He thinks about his ring on John’s left hand. He thinks about waking up everyday for the rest of his life, knowing in the seat of his soul that John chose him out of everybody.

“You,” he says finally. He doesn’t think that will give him away; he means it abstractly, exactly the way he does not want to mean _will you marry me?_   in sixteen days. “Just you.”

John huffs and smacks Sherlock’s chest, not hard, not even enough to sting, just enough to show his exasperation, but he’s already laughing. “You bloody sap. Here I am, listing all this crap, stupid stuff and you know it, and you come back with this mushy bit. Now I sound like a total Grinch! ‘Just you’ indeed.”

He laughs into Sherlock’s mouth when he kisses him, one hand on Sherlock’s jaw and the other sneaking up under his t-shirt, spreading his palm over Sherlock’s belly so he can feel Sherlock giggle as he’s licking the sounds out of Sherlock’s mouth. It’s playful and affectionate, making out like teenagers on the sofa, and the weight of John pressing him down makes him feel ancient, hundreds of thousands of years old. Even though it’s only been months, Sherlock feels like he’s been loving John like this forever.

Eventually things slow, and they’re panting into each other’s mouths more than they’re kissing, and John’s hips are rolling smoothly over Sherlock’s, denims and pyjama bottoms inexcusably in the way of things. Sherlock bites at John’s bottom lip, feeling John’s answering groan all the way down his spine like electricity. “Let’s go to bed,” Sherlock murmurs.

“It’s four in the afternoon,” John protests, but he’s already fumbling with the tie on Sherlock’s pyjamas, trying to shift the waistband down his hips.

“I want you,” Sherlock insists, and John pauses, looking down and taking in the details of Sherlock’s arousal. Sherlock takes the opportunity to arc his neck a little, showing off his throat the way John likes, and makes sure to make his voice a little more breathless than perhaps it really needs to be. The situation should be clear enough judging by what’s going on below their waists, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce the message. “John. I _want_ you.”

John kisses him again, slow and deep and promising. “Come on, then, you sap. Let’s go see if I can find what it is you want for Christmas this year.”

Sherlock lets John off him, and lets John pull him up off the sofa, and lets John walk him backwards down the hall toward the bedroom, kissing at his mouth and jaw and neck and shoulders and, once they reach the bedroom door, Sherlock’s belly button, and then Sherlock pulls him inside and shuts the door and thinks, _I know what I want, John. I want you to want it too._


	10. Scrooge

The bell at the front of the shop rings at the exact moment Sherlock scrawls his signature over the receipt. The shop owner, a soft-spoken elderly gentleman in a bow tie, looks to the door, but Sherlock catches his eye and shakes his head before Mr Callahan can go over. Sherlock knows who it is. Of course he does.

It’s Mycroft, silhouetted against the grey window of the door in perfect profile as he looks over the quiet old shop with something that might be disdain. His abnormally large nose tilts up as it prepares to make the dive down into Sherlock’s business.

A crack of thunder would’ve been just perfect, Sherlock thinks, but the weather only drips on undramatically.

Sherlock turns back to the shopkeep. “Thank you Mr Callahan,” he says, shaking his hand with a genuine smile. “I’ll look forward to seeing the final product.” He nods, as obviously as possible, toward the back room, and Mr Callahan takes the hint and ambles off.

“I could have arranged for something from my personal jeweler,” Mycroft says as the door to the back room closes. The way he says _personal_ is loaded with judgment, no doubt popping out of his mouth forceful enough to disturb several weeks of dust. Mr Callahan is, after all, getting on in years.

“If I’d wanted something that reeked of excess and made John uncomfortable, I’d have let you know,” Sherlock says tightly. He gathers up his things, slipping his credit card back into his wallet and folding up the receipt with neat lines and filing it behind a few things so John won’t be likely to find it.

Of course, Sherlock had known that he wouldn’t be able to go through all of this without Mycroft finding out, but he had hoped that he might be able to at least let Sherlock get on with it without any interference. Too much to hope, apparently.

Behind him, Mycroft wanders further into the shop, drawing his fingertip over a cherry display cabinet with sets of antique pearl jewelry laid out on royal blue velvet. The rain is muffled and quiet, and the shop is filled instead with the ticking of the mahogany grandfather clock in the corner as it counts down to Mycroft’s inevitable disapproval.

Sherlock isn’t sure what to say. He knows he’s taking a risk. He _knows_ there’s a chance, a pretty big chance, that John will say no, or laugh him off, or even look up at him in alarm, _oh Sherlock, it’s too soon, I’m not–-I’m so sorry._ Sherlock knows any of these things are possible, and might even be more possible than  _yes._

He doesn’t need to be told.

When he turns back, though, hands shoved deep into his pockets, Mycroft smiles the closest thing he’s ever managed to a real smile, and only says, “Congratulations.”

Sherlock is so surprised he takes a full step back and almost falls over a stool that’s been set out for people to sit on as they look at the displays. “Excuse me? You can't possibly mean that.”

Now Mycroft’s smile looks like he’s been force-fed a brick. “I’m not the Scrooge to your Mr Cratchit, Sherlock. I’m not trying to rob you of your happiness. My motivations have always only been to protect you from harm.”

“You’ve had a funny way of showing it,” Sherlock says.

“I’ve not always been successful, no. But I did try.”

There’s a brief pause as they stand facing each other, in a tiny cluttered jeweler’s that smells both like dust and cleaning polish where Sherlock just bought a wedding ring, and all at once, Sherlock thinks he understands Mycroft better in this moment than he has done his entire life. Sherlock has hated and resented Mycroft’s interferences, but he sees now the anxiety and the fear, alongside a deep-rooted sense of failure that originated probably sometime in their childhood, that compelled Mycroft to keep trying.

And now, Mycroft has not come to congratulate Sherlock so much as he has come to relinquish that fear. He is, for all intents and purposes, giving over the job of protecting Sherlock to John. As much as it makes Sherlock’s hackles want to rise in indignant fury, he forces himself to swallow down the impulse and take it for what it’s worth.

“You don’t think John is a threat to me, then,” Sherlock concludes. Mycroft shakes his head. The grip he has on his brolly shifts and changes, then shifts back. “You don’t think John will.” Sherlock clears his throat. It’s harder than he expected it to be, to give voice to this particular fear. “You don’t think he’ll refuse me.”

“No,” Mycroft says. “On the basis of the facts that are available to me at present, no. I don’t think he will refuse you.”

“You have to promise not to come for him if he does.”

“I don’t believe I’d have to,” Mycroft says, very seriously. “After all, Martha Hudson will be just downstairs, won’t she?”

Sherlock snorts, and doesn’t know what else to say, but Mycroft is still looking at him curiously from across the shop. Then Mycroft’s gaze drops down to the display case to Sherlock’s right, and he understands. He wouldn’t have expected Mycroft to care, but-–“Mr Callahan was a client, couple of months ago. His apprentice was nicking some of the antiques and claiming he must’ve misremembered where he’d laid them when Mr Callahan couldn’t find them. John liked him, said he reminded him of his granddad. It’s fairly plain, obviously, but well made. Palladium alloy. It’ll suit him.”

“Yes, I imagine it will,” Mycroft agrees quietly, and he holds the door open for Sherlock as they leave. “Remember to call Mummy on Christmas, will you?”

“Oh, I’ve got her penciled in right before the Queen,” Sherlock assures, only half-joking, and he watches Mycroft as he gets back into the black town car before he turns north toward Baker Street, suddenly anxious for John’s arms around him, for that dark warm comfort and that solid protectiveness that even Mycroft trusts will last forever.


	11. Mulled Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter as written from Sherlock's perspective as though drunk, so please be aware of that if alcohol consumption is triggering for you.

John tastes like warm and red, like a sunset is living inside his mouth, like dark cherries and orange chocolates and cinnamon vanilla, and Sherlock can’t stop kissing him. His lips are stained purple and whenever Sherlock pulls away, he thinks, _that’s me, that’s me on his mouth, I’m leaving myself behind._

When he giggles, it sounds slow, like the laughter has to move through black treacle on its way to Sherlock’s ears.

Sherlock slumps back onto his own sofa cushion and reaches for his glass of mulled wine. It’s still warm, mostly, but then that’s because John just refilled them, isn’t it? His elbows feel like they are existing a full two inches in front of the rest of his arms. The orange slice has been stained red, like John’s mouth, and Sherlock watches it battle with the cinnamon stick and star anise for space to float around in.

“S’good, huh?” John asks, nudging Sherlock’s elbow with his knee. He sits up from where Sherlock’s had him pushed back against the sofa arm and reaches for his own glass. “Been making this one since. Hmmm. Last year of uni, I think.”

“Tastes like you,” Sherlock agrees as he takes another sip. He feels it in his cheeks, in his chest: the taste of John in his body, in his veins.

John laughs and leans over to kiss Sherlock again. The wine in Sherlock’s hand sloshes and when he laughs back into John’s mouth, John pulls away and takes his glass, setting both back down on the coffee table. “C’mere, you,” he says, making a face that maybe is intended to be sexy but which just makes Sherlock laugh some more. Sherlock goes anyway, pushing John back to his place against the sofa arm and shimmying up his body, settling chest to chest, hip to hip, slipping his legs between John’s.

Sherlock can feel John’s heart beating through both their chests, can hear the thrum of John’s heart low in his eardrums, as though it’s a sound he’s always heard all his life. He can taste John’s heart in his mouth, and it tastes like citrus and aged wood and smoke.

It’s been a lazy, luxurious night; Sherlock had spent the afternoon at a boutique sweet shop, Honeybees & Nectar, sussing out which of their employees was selling their ultra top secret macaroon recipes to their competitors before the prize recipe for peach rosewater went out the door. The recipe was saved, the dishwasher was publicly disgraced, and a box of the saved macaroons and a chocolate raspberry cheesecake had been pressed into Sherlock’s hands in appreciation. The macaroons went to Mrs Hudson; the cheesecake had been attacked, still in its box, with a pair of forks.

Now they were somewhere in the third bottle of red wine, mulled and spiced to perfection, and Sherlock feels like he is drifting in the firelight, like he’s being buoyed up by the heat and lulled by the flicker, and John is all soft smiles and half-hooded eyes and warm warm hands on Sherlock, on the nape of his neck and the line of his jaw and the curve of his back.

They’re not really _doing_ anything, there on the sofa, but at the same time, it’s so close and intimate, kisses that last for hours and the roll and shift of hips against one another, breathless with wine and affection, Sherlock wonders if this is sex, being together like this. It feels like it might be; it has that same secret black-burgundy silk feeling inside his head.

Secret, secret, secret. Sherlock has a secret. He says so, brushing the words up against John’s chin. “I have a secret.”

John grins, makes a noise that might be a chuckle and might just be interest. “A secret? You keeping secrets from me, bumble?”

Sherlock shakes his head, because no, he doesn’t keep secrets from John, he gives John everything, he tells John everything. Keeping secrets from John have made things bad, before. No, not from John. But this one, this once, a little.

John kisses Sherlock’s cheek, then gets distracted for a moment snuffling along the cheekbone, before returning to Sherlock’s mouth. “What’s your secret, then? Hm? Is it a good one?”

There’s a quadruple-folded receipt in Sherlock’s wallet. There’s a commission on the back desk of a jeweler with Sherlock’s name on it. There’s a plan and a hope, and Sherlock’s brow crinkles as he hides his face in John’s neck. “Mmhmm. It’s a good kind of one. Not supposed to tell you though. Is it okay?”

“You gonna tell me someday?” John can’t kiss his face anymore, so he peppers kisses into Sherlock’s hair, above his ear, and even though there’s a secret, John sounds soft and happy and Sherlock wants to hug him with the entirety of his body and sink down inside, become like the pit of an apricot. He can’t though, so instead Sherlock nods, lifting his head back up so he can look John in the eye.

“Promise,” he says. “Promise, promise, promise.”

John’s hands are on his ribs, in his curls, holding Sherlock close to him so he can kiss him. Sherlock has a secret and John is still kissing him, and John is amazing, John is lovely, John is, John is, John is, John is rolling his hips up against Sherlock’s and kissing him harder, and longer, and making a sound in the back of his throat that Sherlock wants to bottle so he can take it out and have it again on bad days, and the best days, and all the days, until the low pleased sound of him and the warm cherry taste of him are as much a part of Sherlock as his skin and his breath and his heart.

John pulls back a little and presses his lips to Sherlock’s chin, Sherlock’s nose, Sherlock’s forehead, and then presses their foreheads together and rubs his nose alongside Sherlock’s, like he’s looking for the stamp of his mouth on Sherlock’s skin. “I love you,” John whispers, and Sherlock feels fragmented and wobbly and completely, comprehensively, _relentlessly_ whole.


	12. Ugly Christmas Jumpers

It gets dark early in the winter. Very early. By half past four in the afternoon, the sun is long gone and London stretches on into the night.

And Sherlock loves it. He loves the way the city lights itself, he loves the mess of the dull orange glow of the street lamps and the bright yellow shine in the store fronts and the purple-blues of tellies playing inside flats, the great big spotlights shining out into the skies, the harsh pinks and greens of lighted adverts lining the pavements, the tiny pinpricks of fairy strings and battery-operated candles left in windows.

And he loves the light of 221B in the night, the way John likes to leave the curtains open as though inviting the gleam and glimmer of the city inside, the way the shadows stretch along the walls, the way the cool, colourless kitchen flourescents let him work well past sundown and the way the warm, saturated sitting room lamps let him sink down, languid and loose, when the work is done.

Sherlock crosses his arms and leans against the kitchen door frame, looking over the sitting room and watching the way the light illuminates John as he sits at the desk with his laptop. For once, Sherlock has no idea what he’s doing–-browsing the web, obviously, but Sherlock doesn’t know what he’s looking at–-and it feels both strange and comforting, to look at John and not know everything about him in one fell swoop.

That’s always been John’s way, though. He’s always kept little bits and pieces of himself, certain hidden urges and desires and fears and worries, and as desperately as Sherlock wants to know him entirely, through and through, he finds it unendingly beautiful that only John can give that to him.

Sherlock cannot take all those bits of John. He cannot insist. John has to choose him, has to decide to let Sherlock in, and hundreds and hundreds of times over, John _has._

He pushes off the door frame and goes over to John at the desk, leaning so he can hook his chin over John’s shoulder. John’s cheek brushes against his when John smiles, reflexively, and Sherlock feels it like a brush of electricity. He’s reading some Wikipedia article about Charles Dickens. Some of the links-– _A Christmas Carol, Walter Scott, Anglicanism_ -–are purple where he’s clicked them already. Sherlock doesn’t see the connection between them, can’t deduce what John’s been researching. “What are you doing?”

John’s shoulder twitches under Sherlock’s jaw. “Dunno, actually. Went to look something up for the blog and I guess I’ve just been clicking around.” He tilts his head a bit and rubs his face against the side of Sherlock’s. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Finished that experiment with the teeth. Thought maybe I’d play a little.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” John says. “Go on, you go stand over there.” He gestures to the middle of the sitting room and waits, unmoving, so Sherlock gets up and goes to stand where John said; he can’t see the laptop screen any longer, so he can’t see what John types in next. Probably into the address bar-–he’s navigating to a different website. And types again: he’s searching for something.

A weak, tinny sounding piano starts playing out of the laptop speakers, and John taps again at the keyboard, turning up the volume. A cello adds in, then a guitar and a violin, then a woman’s voice. It’s some pop music song Sherlock’s never heard in his life, but it’s got an easy beat and when John slides off his chair and takes Sherlock’s hands in his, it’s clear what his intent is. It makes Sherlock’s mouth dry and his throat thick and his cheeks hot.

“Been awhile, hasn’t it?” John says, pulling Sherlock close, smiling gently, and Sherlock hopes John can’t feel his nervous fluttering pulse. “Sorry, it’s not a waltz, but I thought maybe something a little more casual would be all right.”

“Yeah,” Sherlock tries to say, but it only kind of rasps out. John’s hand on his waist is strong and certain, and when he steps to the side and begins to sway he’s solid and confident. It’s so unlike the first time they’d tried to dance together that it doesn’t quite feel real.

Back then, that first time, a lifetime ago, John had snapped the curtains shut and double checked the doors were locked and his hands were sweaty the entire time. John not looked up at Sherlock even once. John had seemed so afraid to touch him, like that might mean something he didn’t want it to, and Sherlock had wanted to die. He had counted out the beats of John and Mary’s wedding waltz, _one, two, three, one, two, three,_ leading John in a simple box step, and had wanted to lie down on the sofa and let his flesh rot away so he’d never have to touch John Watson again.

Now John sleeps in his bed and kisses him good morning and holds him close through the nightmares and touches Sherlock with heat and desire and love and affection, and right now he’s looking up at Sherlock as if there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be and Sherlock feels like there’s a weight under his breastbone that’s so big it almost hurts.

“You all right?” John says, stepping just a little closer. Sherlock can feel the heat of him along the whole of his body.

“This song is awful,” Sherlock tells him, deflecting, because frankly it is. The soft piano and violin of the first song has changed into some twangy guitar and an unmistakable American country accent. “Where did you find this?”

John laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. The sound of it lights up inside Sherlock the way London lights up in the dark, complicated and colourful. “Just searched on youtube, slow dance songs. I didn’t think it’d be up your alley, but I don’t have a great repertoire for dancing so you’ll just have to suffer through what I can actually dance to.”

“Hmph. It’ll do for now,” Sherlock grants. They’re not really dancing anyway, not the way Sherlock learned. It’s really more of a back-and-forth sway, and Sherlock is acutely aware of John’s hips and shoulders and feet where they’re pressed together much more closely than formal dancing would allow. One of John’s hands is on his waist, and the other abandons Sherlock’s hand to smooth up Sherlock’s chest to his neck, making sure that Sherlock is looking at him. Both of Sherlock’s fall to John’s waist and Sherlock has John entirely in his hands and John is smiling up at him with some kind of knowing gentleness, like he can feel the surprise still settling in Sherlock’s frame at the idea that he is real and dancing with Sherlock in 221B with the curtains open and the lights on and the city just outside.

This is the way Sherlock wants to dance with John when they get married.

The thought crashes through Sherlock’s mind unannounced, and he has to swallow back a gasp at the image that comes to mind: John in a suit, and not a tux, he hated the tux, they both hated the tux with the waistcoats and the strange stiff shirts and the ties too high on their necks, but maybe black suits, and shirts that complemented but didn’t match, and the weight of their promises to each other on their fingers. John with his hand on Sherlock’s waist in front of Mrs Hudson and Lestrade and maybe Molly, and probably Mycroft because Mycroft wouldn’t have to be invited to show up anyway, but looking at Sherlock like none of them were there anyway. John smiling up at Sherlock the way he is now, with that sort of small knowingness that makes Sherlock feel understood even when he doesn’t quite understand himself, pulling Sherlock’s body close to his in a way that is both accepting Sherlock as part of himself and claiming him, moving with him across some vaguely gold-lit dance floor in a way that says _together, always._

John’s finger draws down Sherlock’s jaw, bringing him out of his mind and back into John’s arms where he is now, and Sherlock blinks and blinks and blinks and John waits, watching Sherlock, quiet and undemanding but watching him nonetheless, not letting him hide the way he wants to, the way he’s used to.

Finally he manages to settle the chaos in his mind and he leans down, kissing John long and soft, trying to tell him without words exactly what it felt like, to be in that vision with John for a moment, to imagine himself married to John for a moment, and John kisses him back in a way that says, unequivocally, _I know._

When they break apart, John presses a few more quick kisses to Sherlock’s mouth. “Okay? You seem a little-–”

Sherlock clears his throat and gives John a cheeky smile, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Sorry,” he says, making sure to pitch his voice into the joke. “I just got caught up thinking about the tragedy your ugly Christmas jumper is going to be this year.”

Jon laughs again, and the solemnity of the moment dissipates, and they’re just John and Sherlock again, slow dancing in 221B, cracking jokes and loving each other, having weathered worse storms already than most people ever have to weather at all. “I’ve already bought it, too, you’re going to love it.”

“I’m not,” Sherlock assures, kissing John’s nose. “But I’ll love you whether you look like a Christmas ornament or not.”

John makes a considering face. “It’s not so much ‘Christmas ornament’ as it is ‘snowman on a Scottish holiday,’” he jokes. “It’ll match your tartan dressing gown.”

“Oh, are we matching now? Very couple-ish of us.”

“Yes, well,” John says, and when he presses up to kiss Sherlock once again there’s a little bit of the gravity from a few moments ago still in it, and Sherlock recognises that John has let him change the subject but that he doesn’t fool John for an instant. “We make a very good couple, I think. I think I’ll keep us.”

Sherlock kisses him once more as well and hopes that John feels the _thank you_ in it, _thank you for letting it go, I’m not quite ready to talk about it yet, we’ve got to wait until Christmas._ “I think I’ll let you,” he says, trying not to let his nerves get the better of him, and then the music changes again and Sherlock lets himself lose track of time, lets himself be held in John’s hands, dancing in 221B.


	13. Warming in Front of the Fire

It’s scorching, it’s burning, it’s blazing, all sweat-sticky and damp curls sticking to Sherlock’s forehead as John’s hand stretches up the length of his spine, sliding against his slick skin. Sherlock arches into his touch, pulling his chest and neck and head off the seat of his armchair where he’s had himself braced and Sherlock’s head falls back, stretching his throat. John reaches for it, strokes fingers gently along the flutter of Sherlock’s pulse and the bob of his adam’s apple and then up under his jaw, feeling along the bone before disappearing back into Sherlock’s curls, petting for a moment and then tugging, not hard, just a little.

Sherlock gasps with a high, breathy sound, and John groans back at him; the vibration of his voice rumbles through John’s lips and teeth and tongue back into Sherlock body where John is licking and kissing and sucking at his hole. Sherlock pushes his hips back, encouraging John’s tongue deeper into him, and John tries, he does, shifting the angle and pushing inside, licking and circling.

The fire in the hearth is roaring, casting the sitting room in a thick warm glow, bright and frantic as it burns. The light behind Sherlock’s eyelids is brilliant and even with his eyes closed it’s like he can see John bent behind him, so vivid is each and every touch and breath and shift in the space they occupy together.

It’s been nearly an hour now since the laughing, joking atmosphere they’d been enjoying in front of the fire had dissipated into something softer and more sensual. John had reached across the space between their chairs, kissing each of Sherlock’s fingertips in turn and just barely touching the tip of his tongue to the pads of them, kissing down Sherlock’s palm and tracing a wet circle in the middle. They’d met in the middle, then, their lips sliding together, sharing breath, nipping and licking, giggling into each other’s mouths.

Now they’re here, spread out among their shed clothes, Sherlock on his knees with his body mostly in the armchair while John has dipped down behind him, rubbing Sherlock’s arse with one hand and tugging at his curls with the other while he licks into Sherlock’s body, wet and sloppy and frenzied.

Sherlock is so hard he can’t quite believe he hasn’t come yet. His cock aches, jerking occasionally as John’s tongue slides inside and then withdraws again, over and over. He needs more, he needs to be touched, he needs more of John’s skin against his, and suddenly even with all the heat in the room Sherlock is sent to shivering at how exposed he is.

“Please,” he whispers. He tries desperately to say it again, to beg, but the noise he makes is not quite a word.

John’s tongue withdraws, briefly, and then it’s John’s finger instead, sliding easily into Sherlock’s body as his tongue continues to lap around the edges. His finger goes deeper, far deeper than his tongue could’ve reached, and twists, brushing up against Sherlock’s prostate, and it ricochets up Sherlock’s nerves.

Sherlock can’t stop the whine that’s building in his throat, and at this point he doesn’t even want to. If he has to keen, he’ll keen. If he has to beg, he’ll beg. If he has to sob for it, he’ll sob. “John, John, John, John, John.” He’s not even sure if John can hear him. He can barely hear himself.

A second finger joins the first, and Sherlock gasps at the fresh slick slide of it into his body–-John has lubed up his fingers without Sherlock even noticing. His mind is so blank, so focused on the build inside himself, that he’s losing track, and it twists Sherlock’s stomach, making him push himself back on John’s hand and reach one of his hands back to grab at John’s wrist. A small, soft cry escapes his lips when he can’t find the rest of John behind him.

“Shh, sh sh sh.” John understands immediately and crowds close, smearing his mouth over the small of Sherlock’s back, traveling up to between his shoulder blades, the  _shh_ sound blowing cool over his skin. “I’ve got you. You okay?”

Sherlock nods, and John’s cock presses hotly against the inside of Sherlock’s thigh as John continues to finger-fuck him, sliding the two fingers back and forth, twisting them on every third or fourth or fifth time, Sherlock can’t quite keep track. John keeps up his murmuring against Sherlock’s skin, soft encouragements and praise, “I’m with you, I’m here, you’re incredible. Focus on me, okay?” The direction is accompanied by a curl of John’s fingers along Sherlock’s prostate and Sherlock groans. “Focus on me touching inside you, god, you’re doing brilliantly, Sherlock, fuck.”

“Fuck,” Sherlock mouths back. No sound comes out and he has to say it again, louder. “Fuck. Fuck me.”

John drags his nose across Sherlock’s back and pulls his fingers back, then pushes them in again. “Yeah,” John says. “Yeah, okay, Jesus. Just let me-–just a little-–” His fingers slide back, almost all the way out, and then there are three pushing in. It’s a stretch to accommodate them, but Sherlock closes his eyes and wills the growing tension in his body to loosen and unspool, and John grins into Sherlock’s shoulder. “That’s it, there it is, you’re so good Sherlock, you’re so good, okay, come here.”

John moves, shifts back, and then away, but he leaves his hands on Sherlock’s hips, guiding him backward. For a moment Sherlock doesn’t understand, but then he feels the curve of John’s stomach against the top of his arse and John wraps an arm around his abdomen and John’s cock slips between his arse cheeks, slipping against Sherlock’s hole, and he can suddenly envision perfectly what’s happening behind him. John has sat down, leaning against his plush armchair, and is guiding Sherlock down that way, meaning to fuck him from behind and underneath.

They’ve never done it this way before, and John must feel his trepidation in his frame because he’s instantly there, running his hands along Sherlock’s thighs and over his belly, kissing Sherlock’s back. “Is it okay? We don’t have to do it this way. I thought–-I wanted to watch, but I want to hold you, I want you close-–”

Sherlock closes his eyes and leans forward a bit, then shifts his hips so the head of John’s cock catches on his loosened hole. “Don’t let go,” he croaks, and then bears down, and even without John’s hand there to guide himself he slips inside.

John makes a sound like he’s been punched and it makes Sherlock grin; he loves surprising John, he loves taking just a tiny moment of control back in the middle and then giving it right back again. John’s chest surges against his back and his arms wrap up, hands reaching over Sherlock’s chest and over his collarbones, tilting Sherlock’s body back just a little and holding Sherlock to him as closely as he can.

“Gonna move,” Sherlock says, and John’s grip loosens ever-so-slightly so that he can, and Sherlock rolls his hips forward and back, relishing the feeling of John inside him, John’s arms around him, John’s hands scrabbling over his skin. He feels less lost now, with the insistence of John’s cock in him, and he knows John will not leave him, will not abandon this moment.

John grunts and moans, strokes and smooths his hands over as much of Sherlock as he can reach, occasionally reaching down to drag his fingers around the base of his own cock where it meets the edge of Sherlock’s hole when Sherlock drops himself all the way down. Everything seems to have slowed down, almost impossibly, and each slide of John inside him, each tiny punctuating roll of John’s hips, makes Sherlock feel like he’s combusting, like he’s bursting, incandescent with pleasure and passion.

He won’t come this way, though. He can’t get the angle right, and he can’t spare a hand he needs to balance himself for his cock. When his thighs begin to burn, John helps him up and off and he lays himself back onto the rug and pulls John over him, wrapping his legs around John’s hips.

John pushes back inside and wait for a moment, kissing Sherlock long and deep as though saying hello again,  _hello, I missed you, I missed your mouth, I missed your eyes_. Only when Sherlock is just panting into his mouth, not really kissing back at all, trying to hitch his hips and fuck himself on John’s cock, does John begin to move.

There’s no time to waste now and everything speeds back up. Sherlock is shaking in his desperation to come, his cock trapped hot and hard between them, pulling at John and trying to make him go faster, harder, deeper. John does, John gives him what he needs, fucking into Sherlock with long, rough thrusts, angling his hips so he can hit Sherlock’s prostate as often as possible.

When Sherlock comes, it feels like the fire has consumed him. His eyes fly open and his back snaps up off the floor, arms flying around John’s shoulders and fingernails digging into his back, and the sound wrenched from his chest is a pained, desperate cry. John fucks him through it, whispering to him the whole time, “That’s it, you’re gorgeous, there, let it–-Sherlock–-I’ve got you, I’ve got you–-”

Sherlock is still shuddering through the aftershocks when John’s hips lose their control, jerking against Sherlock’s arse. Sherlock lifts his head and bites gently at John’s good shoulder, which makes John clench his eyes and thrust all the way in, hard, and stay there, pulsing out his orgasm into Sherlock’s body. Sherlock hums at the feeling of him twitching and runs his hands soothingly up and down John’s sides.

Eventually John collapses, his cock still buried in Sherlock’s arse, and he snuffles into Sherlock’s neck. “Mmm,” he says.

Sherlock kisses the part of John’s ear that’s right in front of his mouth and closes his eyes. “Mm. Let’s just stay here until Christmas.”

He can feel the spread of John’s smile against his skin. “But I’ve still got to go pick up your present.”

“Who cares,” Sherlock breathes, sighing a little. The weight of John on top of him is comforting and he wants to stay here forever, being pressed into the floor. “This is my present. Merry Christmas, John.”

“Hmm. This is pretty good, but your present is going to be even better.” John has begun to soften now, and he slips out of Sherlock with a wet sound. There’ll be a mess on the rug. If they never move, neither of them will ever have to clean it up.

Sherlock hadn’t give much thought to what John might be getting him for Christmas. He’d been hoping that John would take the ring Sherlock was going to offer and that would be a gift enough. Blissed out and boneless on the floor, Sherlock can’t bother to try to figure it out anyway. Maybe John will actually get to surprise him this year. He hopes he’ll get to surprise John, too, and then they’ll both be surprised for Christmas.

He hopes it’s a good surprise. He thinks it will be. He kisses John’s cheek and breathes in the sweat-warm-sex smell of him, shifting minutely to get more comfortable under the solid weight of him. Yes, Sherlock thinks, he thinks it’ll be a surprise John will be excited to get.


	14. Trimming the Tree

“Just so I’m clear,” John says with a raised eyebrow. “We’re looking for something smaller than an egg, and it’s going to be somewhere in here?” **  
**

Sherlock nods, but he sees John’s point. The Christmas Past exhibit is much larger than he’d anticipated, with at least ten display rooms dressed in period-specific furnishings and several display cases with various antique artifacts besides. On his other side, Lestrade heaves a sigh. “Let’s split up then,” Lestrade suggests. “John, you start over there in the modern era, Sherlock, you start over there in the–-1600s, it looks like? And I’ll have a look around this display cabinets.”

“It’ll be hidden,” Sherlock says. “Underneath, around, behind, inside. It won’t just be sitting out for anyone to find.”

 _It_ is a priceless blue sapphire, and it was stolen several days ago by a professor at Oxford. The professor himself has obviously been apprehended, but he’d refused to tell them where he’d stashed the jewel and Lestrade had called Sherlock and John in for help. Following down the trail of clues and with quite a lot of legwork, Sherlock is now entirely certain that the sapphire is  _somewhere_  in the much-larger-than-expected Christmas Past exhibit.

For a while, they each work through their separate sections. Sherlock goes through 1630, 1745, 1830. By the time Sherlock is dismantling an antique tea set out of an 1890s china cabinet, he’s got three splinters, he hasn’t seen John in over an hour, and he’s beginning to doubt himself.

“Good reminder at least, this,” Lestrade says, cutting into Sherlock’s thoughts as he comes up and leans unhelpfully on the china cabinet. “I still need to pick up a few things before Christmas. Kids have reached that age where it’s tempting to just get them a gift card and let them figure it out for themselves.”

Sherlock hums in response and hopes Lestrade will go away. He has enough of his own to be getting on with, thank you, and the last thing he wants is to spend the next however-long-it-takes rummaging through  _400 years of seasonal traditions in English homes!_  while listening to someone else go on about how awful Christmas is when Sherlock is trying to make this Christmas the best one John has ever had.

Lestrade is not deterred by Sherlock’s obvious disinterest. “You did remember to get him something for Christmas, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says testily, dropping the lid back on a porcelain teapot with more force than was really appropriate. Okay, so, in the past he’s not exactly been the Saint of Christmas Spirit, but things were different now,  _particularly_ where John was concerned. “Of course I did.”

Lestrade nods but doesn’t go away, even when Sherlock glares at him. Eventually his gaze starts to rankle and Sherlock thinks maybe he’d go away if he explained. “I’ve arranged it all with Mycroft. He’s getting a legally licensed pistol.” That actually was true; Mycroft suggested it yesterday when Sherlock texted to ask about an afternoon at a shooting range. It was going to cost Sherlock three international cases and four domestics, but hopefully that would mean that no matter how Christmas night went, no matter how John answered Sherlock’s proposal, at least John would have a happy Christmas anyway.

And if no one ever knew that that was Mycroft’s idea in the first place, all the better.

“You mean he’s getting his pistol legally licensed,” Lestrade points out, and he can’t quite contain his grin.

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.” He shifts a stack of plates back into the cabinet and Lestrade steps forward, handing him a gravy boat, starting to help him move the whole set back into the proper places. Lestrade hands him a pair of tea cups and Sherlock catches sight of Lestrade’s ring, and there’s an idea. Lestrade’s marriage might be bollocks, but he did at least successfully get married. Should he ask? He might know whether Christmas is even a good idea at all.

“And–-there’s also-–” No, he can’t bring him to say it out loud. What if he says it, and then John says no?

“Go on, then,” Lestrade encourages absently. “Something else too? You’ve gotten the hang of this, haven’t you?” He chuckles at his own joke.

Sherlock glances around the exhibit space, but doesn’t see John anywhere. He certainly doesn’t want him overhearing this conversation. “I’d rather not. Just in case-–no sense taking the risk unless–-”

Lestrade nearly drops the silver candelabra he’s holding out to Sherlock as he stares, eyes wide and mouth hanging open like an idiot. “Oh, my god. You don’t mean?”

“Of course I don’t,” Sherlock says quickly. Too quickly. Lestrade’s face splits into a goofy grin and Sherlock remembers suddenly that the reason he works with Lestrade is that he’s not actually as stupid as he seems, and for once, it’s worked against him: he’s barely said anything, but Lestrade’s clearly connected the dots.

“You do! Christ, Sherlock,” he practically bellows as Sherlock tries to shush him. He claps a hand onto Sherlock’s shoulder. “Congratulations.”

Sherlock scowls and sniffs primly, snatching the candelabra out of Lestrade’s hands. “There are no congratulations to be had yet.”

“Ah, but there will be. He’s been gone on you for years. I thought for ages I was going to have to start carrying around a spray bottle so I could spritz water on you two like cats.” Sherlock really needs to work on his intimidating glares, it seems, because Lestrade is still talking. “Come on, now, I’m happy for you! When are you …?”

Sherlock gives in but leaves his scowl firmly in place as he reaches past Lestrade for the rest of the crystal-cut serving dishes. “Keep your voice down,” he hisses. John is still nowhere in sight, but that doesn’t mean he’s not standing somewhere he might hear. “It’s going to be Christmas. I don’t have a solid plan, maybe Christmas eve, maybe Christmas night. So don’t call us.”

Lestrade laughs. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Give you two lots of time to yourselves and give the rest of my team a break.”

Fortunately, Lestrade doesn’t press the issue anymore, and together they manage to put the rest of the tea set and antiques back into the china cabinet. It’s oddly warming, though, that now two people have been confident that John would say yes. Sherlock hopes they’re right. It’s no longer something that might happen between just John and Sherlock-–now there are people watching, people waiting, people ready in the wings to celebrate or pity in turn.

They move from the 1890s into wartime 1910s, but Sherlock can’t concentrate. Mycroft has something of a blind spot when it comes to his little brother, but for even Lestrade to think that John will say yes…somehow, that means something. Suddenly he feels like the pit of his stomach has been hollowed out with nerves.

He can’t help himself, in the end. He has to ask. He sidles over to where Lestrade is on the floor, poking through the interior of a tall, standing radio and clears his throat. “Greg. Do you really think he will?”

Lestrade blinks up at him. Sherlock hasn’t called him that since the last time he overdosed, and it means,  _I’m being serious, and I’m scared,_  and they both know it. “Yeah,” Lestrade says softly, and if they were that sort of people he’d probably have reached out and touched Sherlock just then. “I do. I really do. Okay?”

Sherlock doesn’t give him a small smile back but it’s a very near thing. “Okay.”

Just then, there’s a shout from the other side of the exhibition space. John is waving wildly, a huge grin on his face, “I’ve found it!”

Sherlock and Lestrade push the standing radio back into it’s place and then they dash over to John, who is waiting in the middle of a mess of wrapping paper on display in 1960.

Behind the ugly green leather sofa is a squat Christmas tree, decorated mostly in tinsel but also with a few shoddy-looking plastic ornaments. But there, near the top, is nestled a small sparkling blue gemstone, caught in the vee created where the fake branch sticks into the plastic tree trunk. Sherlock reaches up and plucks it out, and John climbs up onto the hideous sofa to kiss Sherlock’s cheek, and past him, Sherlock can see Lestrade, arms folded loosely over his chest, winking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Christmas Past exhibit](http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/aboutus/press/releases/christmas-2013/) is a real exhibit that shows at the Geffrye Museum in London.


	15. Christmas Parties

_Lestrade     13:22  
_ _Met’s Christmas do tonight, 7pm in the third floor conference room. You guys should come._

Behind him, John is standing with his arms wrapped around Sherlock’s shoulders, nose snuffling along Sherlock’s neck and into the hair at the base of his skull. He’s warm and limp, spread out along Sherlock’s back, having just set down a cup of tea as Sherlock’s mobile buzzed, and Sherlock can’t stop the affectionate smile from inching onto his lips.

“Here,” he says, tipping the mobile screen so John can read it. He resigns himself already to going. He can hear John’s arguments forming in his mind and though he may not like a single one of them, John will have a point.

_It’ll do us some good to be on good terms with them, Sherlock. If you could stand to be charming for ten minutes, you could get ten times the number of cases. And it wouldn’t hurt to protect yourself a little from being accused of being the murderer. We don’t have to stay long. You can pickpocket Greg. I’ll suck you off in the men’s if we can stay half an hour. You don’t have to socialise with anyone. Just show up and stick by the wall, maybe say hello to Lestrade and that nice woman that signs off on our consulting fees, okay?_

But John doesn’t say any of that.

“Let’s not,” John says instead. His voice is muffled along Sherlock’s neck. He nudges Sherlock’s shirt collar to the side so he can lay an unbearably soft open-mouthed kiss to the place where his neck meets his shoulder.  “Let’s skive off. You can even respond and say we’re coming and then we’ll not go, say something came up last minute so we don’t look like a couple of arses.”

Sherlock turns his head, curious at John’s tone, and at the sight of his face, worn and tired and lined, he leans in and catches John’s mouth with his. John makes it a long, gentle kiss that’s filled with some wistful kind of yearning as he presses closer along Sherlock’s back and he pulls a fistful of Sherlock’s silk button-down into his hand on Sherlock’s chest, keeping him in place. It feels like the first time they ever kissed, standing in the rain outside 221B with apologies on their lips and disbelief and hope and  _finally_  in their hands as they clasped together.

“Okay,” Sherlock agrees, trying to keep the trepidation out of his voice. He thought they’d been having a fairly good day, even if it weren’t anything special, but John’s kiss tasted like sadness. He turns in the desk chair and pulls John out from behind him, pulling him into the vee of his legs with hands on his hips. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” John assures him, and he smiles a little too so that Sherlock knows he really is. “I guess I’m just craving a night in, get some takeaway, watch a movie maybe. Just the two of us.” He kisses Sherlock again, drifting his fingers along the line of Sherlock’s jaw.

There’s something, Sherlock thinks. Something else. Maybe it’s not something John really wants to talk about. Maybe it’s something John doesn’t even know how to put into words. But it’s something that is making him cling a little, making him kiss Sherlock like he’s worried he’ll never get to kiss Sherlock again.

Sherlock wants to bundle him into his arms and kiss him for hours and tell him that he can kiss him for the rest of their goddamn lives. Sherlock wants to go pull the secret dark blue velvet box out of the back of his sock index and make sure John knows he’s never leaving. Sherlock wants to line up all the people who ever made John Watson feel like he couldn’t rely on his loved ones to stay and eviscerate them all, one by one.

He’d have to start with himself.

He settles for pulling John closer and wrapping his arms around John’s waist. He can hear the steady  _thum-thum, thum thum_  of John’s heart. “Let’s put on our pyjamas,” Sherlock says, despite the fact that it’s only three in the afternoon and he only just got dressed around lunchtime anyway. “Bundle up on the sofa together. We can put on some stupid action movie we don’t really have to pay attention to, and just lay all over each other all afternoon.”

John delves his fingers into Sherlock’s curls and scratches slowly, just barely making contact with his scalp. “Mm. That sounds nice.”

Sherlock tips his face up and studies John’s. He’s still giving Sherlock that soft small smile, but it’s not quite reaching his eyes. “Just you and me, all night,” Sherlock promises.

“I’m okay, really,” John says by way of response, and then Sherlock has to stand up and pull John into his chest. John goes, and for a moment he holds himself loosely around Sherlock’s body, but when Sherlock presses a hard, fierce kiss to John’s temple, he gives a little sniff and then tightens, grabbing at Sherlock’s shoulder blades and rubbing his face into Sherlock’s shirt, breathing hotly through his mouth.

“I love you,” Sherlock whispers. “John. Listen to me. I love you. Let’s spend all night locked up in here together, like there’s no one else in the world.”

John nods against him but doesn’t lift his face.

“We’re going to get comfortable together on that sofa and listen to each other breathe for about two hours while James Bond tries to blow someone up. Then we’re going to order far, far too much Chinese food, and then when we’re both too full to move I’ll suck you off nice and slow, and then take you already drowsy to bed. Okay?”

He doesn’t really know if that’s good enough. He doesn’t really know what to do. He would do anything, just now, to stop John being like this, but he’s felt this sort of heavy weight in his own chest before and he can only offer what he’s craved. Softness. Comfort. The reassurance of just being together and the steadiness of not having to fit anyone else into their space.

John nods again. “I’m being stupid,” he mumbles. “I don’t even know what’s the matter.”

“Does it have to be just any one thing?” Sherlock asks rhetorically, rubbing his hands down John’s back and encouraging him to look up. “I don’t think it does. Go put on your sleep shirt and I’ll text Geoff and then we’ll have a movie.”

“Don’t text him. Just ignore him, and let’s go take a shower first,” John says. He does look up then, and his face is clean and his eyes are clearer. “Just, let’s start this whole day over.”

Sherlock kisses him and tries to make it sweet and slow and reassuring, and John’s hands loosen against his back. “Okay,” Sherlock agrees, and when he steps away to head for the bathroom, he makes sure to keep one of John’s hands held tightly in his own.


	16. Family Traditions

“Mm. Here, are these noodles done enough?” **  
**

John sticks a slotted spoon with a single farfalle noodle on it between Sherlock and the microscope. Sherlock cocks an eyebrow at him, as if to say,  _is this really the time?_  but John just waits patiently and eventually Sherlock picks up the noodle and sticks it in his mouth. Anyway, they both know that Sherlock’s not looking at anything important, just a bit of dirt he’d picked up in Regent’s Park on their walk earlier that afternoon that he thought looked unusually chalky.

“Al dente,” Sherlock says, knowing that John will cook them just a little bit longer. “What are you making?”

“Fettucine alfredo.”

“That’s a farfalle, not a fettucine.”

John waves a hand and goes back to the hob. “Farfalle alfredo, then. My mum used to make it every winter around Christmas. Bowtie pasta, homemade alfredo sauce, sundried tomatoes, spinach. She used to say that it brightened up the winter while still warming up your bones.”

Sherlock leans forward again to look back at his dirt sample, but now John is more interesting than the dirt. Hardly surprising. John being the most interesting thing in the flat is not an unusual happenstance in 221B. 

Sherlock abandons the sample and instead gets off his stool, going to stand behind John and hooking his chin over John’s shoulder, watching the pot of pasta boil on a little longer. On the hob next to it is another pot with a smooth white alfredo sauce warming. It looks thick and creamy and rich, and Sherlock’s mouth waters. “We didn’t have traditions like this growing up,” Sherlock says. “It’s kind of nice.”

John laughs. “I don’t know that I’d call it a tradition, really. It was something she did, but it wasn’t like. I don’t know. Baking Christmas biscuits or hanging up the decorations or going to midnight mass. You didn’t do that sort of thing growing up?”

“Mummy is a particle physicist, of course we didn’t go to midnight mass,” Sherlock snorts. “And if you remember from last year, she’s actually a  _terrible_  cook.”

John laughs again and Sherlock slings his arms around his waist, pulling him back into his chest a little so that he can feel that laugh against him. “She’s not that bad,” John says.

“She set the ham on fire, John.”

There it is again, the shake and shudder of John against him as he tries to contain his giggles. “She said it was an experiment too. No question where you got that excuse from.”

Sherlock sniffs in mock indignation, but concedes that the effect is probably lost by him kissing along the back of John’s neck. “I have never set a ham on fire. I learned from my grandmum, and she more than made up for my mother’s failings in the kitchen.”

“Maybe we should make that our tradition,” John suggests. He stirs the pasta once more time, then begins to move the noodles from the water into the other pot, letting the water drain through the slotted spoon before dumping them into the sauce. “Will you get the spinach and the sundried tomatoes out of the fridge?”

Sherlock draws himself off John, but slowly, so John feels every inch of him separating away as he goes to the fridge. It makes John shiver deliciously. “You want to make setting a ham on fire our holiday tradition? Surely we can think of a better tradition that that. We could have all sorts of fantastic holiday traditions.” He thinks about decorating Mrs Hudson’s flat and kissing John with lips that tasted like icing sugar. He thinks about going to the Nutcracker and envisioning kissing John center-stage–-maybe next year he’ll find a way to make the vision a reality.

He thinks about the small secret box hidden in the closet, of promises and reassurances and hopes. Those are the sorts of holiday traditions Sherlock wants to celebrate with John.   

“What, you mean like fucking in front of the fire?” John giggles, and Sherlock blushes and giggles too. Not  _quite_  what he had in mind, but it had truly been phenomenal sex. Sherlock deposits the spinach and tomatoes on the worktop and then drapes himself back over John. “Might be hard to carry on with that when we’re ninety and decrepit.”

 _Oh, oh, oh, oh_. Sherlock’s heart stutters in his chest and he pulls away a little so John won’t feel it. Even though they’re talking about creating traditions together, Sherlock is so taken aback at John’s casual tone,  _when we’re ninety_ , that his mouth suddenly goes dry and his pulse is like a battering ram, crashing through his veins. John had said it so easily, like it’s a foregone conclusion that someday they’ll be ninety, and they’ll still be together, and Sherlock wants that, he’s desperate for it.

 _Don’t give away the game now,_  he tells himself.  _Don’t react. Definitely don’t overreact._  When his voice comes back to him, instead of asking John if he meant it, he says, “You’ll never be decrepit, don’t be ridiculous.”

John stirs the veg into the pasta and turns the heat up a little, warming the whole thing once more before they dish it out to eat. Then he sets his spoon down and turns in Sherlock’s grip, reaching up to kiss him with an exaggerated smacking sound. “I hope I am, someday,” he says lightly. “All old and hunched and wrinkled. I’ll probably be the grouchiest old man in London. I think I’d like that.”

Sherlock hums as John kisses him again, much more seriously this time. John tastes like he’s been sampling the sauce and it’s brilliant, all garlicky parmesan and a tiny hint of nutmeg and the heat of John’s mouth. When John finally releases him, Sherlock says the first thing that comes to mind. “In Sussex.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll have to be the grouchiest old man in Sussex,” Sherlock clarifies. He can see it in his mind’s eye, John getting grumpy about a garden patch and going on about the mess in the study and tottering around some cosy old place brimming and bursting with the detritus of a life well spent together. “I’d like to leave the city, someday, I think. To retire. I’ll keep bees. You can write dreadful books. We’ll get a dog or something.”

There’s quiet for a moment as John stares up at him. Behind him, the sauce is beginning to bubble, and Sherlock wonders, stomach sinking, if he’s gone too far. They’re talking about traditions together and John said ninety, but perhaps it was too much to say, too much to dream, too many details and plans and ideas all spilled out at once. He tries to keep his face clear and neutral, but then suddenly John surges in his arms and presses their lips together, once, hard. “I think I’d like that,” John says. “Bees and books in Sussex. All right.”

And John turns back to finish up the pasta, leaving Sherlock blinking behind him, his heart in his throat and his hands trembling around the space where John had just been in the best sort of nervous Sherlock has ever been in his life.

 


	17. Christmas Without You

Warm. A warm-heavy slipping and sliding around the edges of Sherlock’s dream, a soft-warm-heavy slipping through the gold-dusted azure of sleep and into Sherlock’s arms. **  
**

“Sherlock,” the soft-warm-heavy whisper-singsongs. “Sherlock.”

Dry brushing with hint of damp on Sherlock’s cheek, pressure on his thighs and the middle of his chest and his right hand, pushing and shifting, rearranging, and Sherlock finally comes to waking like floating up to the surface, like his eyes and nose and mouth are shifting through while his t-shirt and his curls and his dressing gown are still drifting in the sea of sleeping, dragging him down, resisting.

“Sherlock.” The whisper-singsong is closer now, bumping up against Sherlock’s nose, nudging at his mouth. “Sherlock. It’s time to wake up.”

Some of the fog clears and Sherlock hums. John. John, too warm, crawling into the space between Sherlock and the back of the sofa, John with his hands brushing back Sherlock’s fringe, John with his thighs against Sherlock’s and his mouth pressing Sherlock’s own name back into his skin.

Sherlock stays, quiet-warm-still, doesn’t open his eyes.

“You’ve been sleeping for hours, bumble. It’s time to get up.” John’s nose nudges against Sherlock’s, and this time when his lips graze against Sherlock’s, Sherlock manages to move a little and kiss him back. It’s always worth kissing John back.

“Not,” Sherlock murmurs. His words feel like toffee on his tongue. “Not sleeping. M’thinking.”

John’s chuckle is more breath than voice and his arm on Sherlock’s waist tightens for a moment. “You’re snoring.”

Sherlock’s brow furrows and then he has to open his eyes. John has managed to shove himself into the little space Sherlock’s body left on the sofa and he’s wedged his head up onto the pillow so they’re face-to-face. His eyes, his dark deep lapis lazuli eyes, are laughing, and Sherlock closes his own eyes again so he can commit them to memory.

“I don’t snore,” Sherlock pouts, contorting his mouth into a half-displeased, half-unable-to-stop-smiling-when-John-looks-at-him-like-that moue. John kisses at his bottom lip until it relaxes. Doesn’t take long.

“It’s time to wake up,” John insists, but he’s quiet and he stays soft-warm-heavy along the line of Sherlock’s body. Sherlock thinks if he would just stop talking, they could both go back to sleep and this could last all night. “We’ve got to run down to the Met and sign some things for Greg on the sapphire case. And he hinted that he might have something to keep you busy over Christmas.”

Sherlock keeps his eyes closed and tries not to perk up at the suggestion of a cold case file. He can’t always solve them, but sometimes he can at least find a clue to add to the file or narrow down the list of suspects. Someday, if he solves enough of them, they might start giving him the really interesting ones.

John must be able to feel Sherlock’s interest in the tensing of his body, though, because he chuckles again, low and affectionate, and kisses Sherlock again. Sherlock wiggles one hand under John’s torso and then rolls, pulling John with him. He rolls onto his back and John rolls on top of him, and the laughter bubbles up like seafoam as John settles, shifting to their ribs and hip bones don’t jab at one another quite so insistently, and John kisses him back into the pillow.

“Come on, you,” he says brightly when he pulls back, pulling out of the soft-warm-heavy atmosphere of an afternoon nap on the sofa. “Time to get up. I don’t want to spend a Christmas with you being all bored and sour, so let’s go pick up the cold case files Lestrade’s got and then maybe on our way home we can get a bottle of wine and some takeaway from that Greek place you like that won’t deliver to us anymore.” He sits back, then climbs off the sofa.

Sherlock wrinkles his nose at the loss of John’s body and the comfort of his heat and weight, and sits up. “Empty threat,” he points out, yawning. “You certainly aren’t going to be volunteering to go to Christmas at your sister’s; I could probably be the most annoying, difficult person on the planet for the next week and you’d still be here.”

John reaches for the Union Jack pillow on his chair and tosses it at Sherlock’s head. Sherlock catches it easily. “Better count my lucky stars then that you’ll come with me now and _not_  be the most annoying, difficult person on the planet for the next week,” he says, but he comes back to Sherlock and runs his fingers through his curls one more time and then kisses his forehead and Sherlock closes his eyes to bask in it a moment. “Besides,” John adds, in a serious, hushed tone, his fingers trailing over Sherlock’s cheekbones, “I don’t really want another Christmas without you.”

Sherlock looks up, and John looks back at him with almost unbearably tender eyes, and when John moves to pull him to his feet, Sherlock goes. 


	18. Mistletoe

Molly Hooper, Sherlock reflects as he watches her prepare the body he’s going to help her autopsy, has changed rather a lot since they first met. Oh, sure, she still has appalling sartorial tastes and she can scarcely manage to go an hour without mentioning one of her cats, but altogether, Sherlock thinks, she’s really come into her own over the past several years.

The last of her residual attraction to Sherlock had dissipated when he and John had finally come together, out of what appeared to be real happiness for the two of them (although Sherlock suspects several well-timed possessive hands to his lower back as he and John exited the morgue may have helped). Nowadays, Molly stammers less, laughs more, and has regrettably become much less flexible when it comes to Sherlock’s attempts to bend the rules. Or maybe it’s that Sherlock just gives up much more easily than he used to when she says no. It could be both.

They’ve both changed then, Sherlock decides, and he thinks it’s for the better. 

Seven years ago, Sherlock was alone and reveling in it, closing himself off and priding himself on his distance, his impartiality, his disdain for sentiment, and spending his days convincing himself that he wasn’t lonely.

Seven hours ago, Sherlock had woken up when John had snugged up closer to him, and they’d spent nearly a half an hour kissing with their mouths closed and giggling about how badly they both needed to shower, and when Lestrade showed up and they decided that John would go watch the suspect’s interview while Sherlock helped Molly with the autopsy, John had squeezed his hand and watched him out of the back window of Lestrade’s car, smiling, until they turned the corner.

“All right,” Molly says cheerfully, breaking him out of his reverie. “I think we better start with the interesting bits, don’t you think?”

Sherlock steps up, snapping on a pair of gloves, and surveys the body. Male, late twenties, average height and weight. Worked in an office of some kind, possibly a call center, lived with more than one other person, not dating anyone on a regular basis. He was almost painfully nondescript, with no marks, no cuts, no bruises, nothing to suggest that he had even been murdered except that he’d been found dead that morning, in the kitchen of a restaurant he appeared to have no connection to, with his mouth stuffed full of vegetation.

“Mistletoe,” Molly identifies, unnecessarily, chuckling with a sort of dark medical humour that comes from having spent a long time working with unusual deaths. “Bit of an implication, isn’t it?”

Sherlock lets one side of his mouth twitch. “Yes, well. Lestrade and John are trying to just exactly what the implication is. For all the mistletoe, we still have to establish that he was actually murdered.” He meets her eyes across the table and smirks. “After all, maybe festive corpse decoration are just part of a holiday tradition.”

Molly laughs and hands over a pair of tweezers, gesturing toward the mouth. “Let’s get all that out of there, then.”

They work together for a while, side by side, extracting as much of the mistletoe out of the mouth as they can without cutting, then Sherlock stands back for a bit as Molly opens up the body and goes through the autopsy in her normal way.

“What are you and John doing for Christmas?” Molly asks, about a half an hour later, as Sherlock dissects the stomach. “Anything planned?”

Sherlock gives a little shake of his head. “Just the usual. Nothing in his stomach but pizza, by the way.”

“That pub he was found in, they doesn’t serve pizza,” Molly points out, making a notation on her clipboard. “They have a nice cheese toastie, though. Just staying here in London, then?”

Sherlock looks over at her, frowning-–did Lestrade tell her?-–but she doesn’t appear to be probing for any certain information. Either Lestrade has kept his word not to tell anyone, or Molly has gotten to be a much better liar over the years. The latter seems more plausible.

He could tell Molly, though. She’s proven that a hundred times over. She’s kept the worst of secrets for Sherlock. Maybe he should trust her with the best secret of them all.

“I’m going to ask John to marry me,” Sherlock says slowly, and suddenly it’s real and right there and it’s the first time he’s said it out loud, the first time he’s put those words together and let them escape his mouth, and Sherlock has to sit back down on his stool.

Molly’s face lights up and she reaches to touch his shoulder, but thinks better of it when she sees her blood-streaked glove. “Oh, Sherlock, that’s wonderful! Congratulations! How are you going to ask, do you have any plans?”

“I’m going to ask John to marry me,” Sherlock repeats, feeling a bit giddy. Maybe hysterical. Even though he’s been thinking about it almost nonstop for weeks, even though he’s bought a ring, even though he’s totally prepared to take this step with John, he’s never said it out loud before. He looks up at her, stunned at himself. “Oh, my god. I’m-–Molly, I’m-–I’m going to ask John to marry me.”

“Okay,” Molly says, giggling, holding a placating hand out, “okay, hold on.” She goes over to the sink and strips off her gloves, dumping them in a biohazard bin, and then washes her hands. She seems very calm and Sherlock watches her, wondering how anyone can be so calm. She comes back over to him and puts both her hands on Sherlock’s shoulders. “Sherlock. You’re going to ask John to marry you.”

She doesn’t seem to want any kind of response, really. She seems to be saying it just so Sherlock can hear it said. He nods.

“I think it’s perfect,” Molly says, looking straight at him so he can’t escape her gaze. “He will love it. You’re going to get engaged, and sometime next year you’re going to get married, and go off and live happily ever after. Okay?”

Sherlock nods again. She’s so certain. She’s kept the worst of secrets for Sherlock, from John, and she is still so certain. A bubble of giddy laughter comes out of his mouth before he’s even aware that it’s been building. “I’m going to ask John to marry me,” he repeats again, and this time he can’t stop himself smiling, and Molly smiles back.

“Happily ever after,” she insists. “You two deserve it.”

“Fairy tales aren’t real,” he says automatically, even though he’s still grinning, and he laughs again, because he’s going ask John to marry him, and they’re going to have a future together, whether married or not, and it’s solid and concrete and the rest of their lives has already begun.

Molly laughs and says, certain and sure and maybe just the tiniest bit wistful, “Yours is.”


	19. Christmas Songs

It starts, as these things often do, right on the edges of Sherlock’s awareness. He’s not quite mastered the art of keeping some part of his awareness on John. He can manage it for an hour, maybe a little bit more, but once he’s focussed,  _really_  focussed, the reality of the world around him fades out and though John is often the last light in the fringes, the tunnel vision narrows in.

John doesn’t seem to mind. At least, not any more than he always minded, which means that occasionally Sherlock gets a long-suffering sigh and a Look, but for the most part he’ll also get a quick peck on the lips and a hand ruffling through his curls through John’s exasperation, so it seems to be okay. Sherlock will keep working on carving out a piece of his mind that can always focus on John, though. He always wants to know what John is doing.

Right now, Sherlock is bent over an enormous piece of graphing paper, plotting out mathematical formulas for an experiment he’s planning to run after the new year comparing household acids and their effects on the soles of popular trainers, and John is coming into his mind, sneaking and slipping past the barriers Sherlock’s focus unwittingly erects against his surroundings.

He’s humming.

It niggles along the line of Sherlock’s mind, just the soft, casual sound of it, and the questions in his mind about control groups and storage containers give way to it.  _What song, what’s he doing, where is he, is he happy, John?_

Sherlock looks up. John is in the kitchen, doing some of the washing up. He’s humming absently, smiling to himself as he does it, a familiar tune that seems sort of quick and joyful and almost childish, the sort of thing year threes manage at nativity plays. He can anticipate the tune, he can even note the moment when John reaches the end of the verse and begins humming a new song, but he can’t remember the words to this one either, and his brow furrows as he watches John finish stacking up the dishes to dry.

John comes back toward the sitting room. When he sees Sherlock, come out of his mind palace and watching John intently as he hums, he grins, and takes a next breath, and sings the next line: “Don we now our gay apparel, fa la la, la la la, la la la.”

Sherlock laughs, but still can’t remember the words. John comes over and kisses his temple before going on, “Troll the ancient Yuletide carol,” and Sherlock joins in on the  _fa la las_ , the two of them poking at each other’s tummies and shoulders in an unspoken tease about the quality of their singing voices.

Actually, they’ve got a nice match-up for singing, Sherlock thinks. John’s voice is warm and a bit scratchy and makes Sherlock feel like he’s just taken a very large sip of hot chocolate.

“Got some carols stuck in my head while I was out at the shop,” John explains. “You done with this for now?” He gestures at Sherlock’s graphing paper.  

“Could be,” Sherlock says with a wry smirk. “Look at you, doing the shop, doing the washing up. My god, John, you’ve become domesticated.”

John laughs and swats at the hand Sherlock’s got on his waist. “Watch your mouth,” he warns playfully. “There was  _mould_  growing in some of those dishes, it was disgusting. We are revoltingly bad at domestication.”

“Not really our style, is it?” Sherlock agrees, and he tips his head back so John will give him another kiss. One kiss becomes two, and then three, but before Sherlock can really sink down into them and let them all smooth together, John steps away.

“Why don’t you play me some carols,” he asks, stepping away and shooting at glance at the violin case behind Sherlock, “so that when we go to bed tonight, they won’t be in the back of my mind, hm?”

John goes to sit in his chair, but he stays on the edge and leans his elbows on his knees, watching Sherlock intently. Sherlock knows what this is about, and he takes out the bow and prepares it with rosin carefully, slowly, looking over at John with half-lidded eyes as he strokes the rosin over the hairs. It’s a slow seduction, of sorts–-Sherlock will play, and John gets to watch the line of his body as he sways to the music, and how his fingers move over the strings, along the neck, and it is, for both of them, a delicate suggestion of something that might come later.

Sherlock realises with a jolt that this is nearly exactly the moment he’d planned for the proposal. The night is dark around them, and the fire is crackling, and John is looking up at him affectionately and requesting that he play, and a shiver of anticipation runs up Sherlock’s spine. It’s to be a proper rehearsal, then: a chance to see what he has to do to create the perfect conditions on Christmas night.

“Any requests?” Sherlock asks as he picks up the instrument, and John shakes his head with a soft, fond smile, so Sherlock plays  _O Tannenbaum_ , and  _Silent Night_ , and _Jingle Bell Rock_ , which makes John sit back and giggle and wiggle his hips in his seat.

After about a half an hour, John stands again and comes closer, sitting on the arm of Sherlock’s chair, but he doesn’t reach out to him. “Can you do  _O Holy Night_?” he asks. “That was my mum’s favourite, growing up.”

Sherlock can, and he does, playing as sweetly as he can, making the violin swell and sweep out the crescendos, disallowing the quiet melancholy that the song can sometimes have. It’s a song of triumph, after all, a song of glory, a song about beauty and divinity coming into the world, the promises of redemption in the birth of an infant. Sherlock isn’t religious, but he doesn’t have to be in order to appreciate the hope of it, the prayer that one might be forgiven for the darkest parts of themselves by a man who saw them as they truly were and loved them anyway.

When the song ends, John is there, with a very soft smile, already taking the instrument out of his hands. “That was beautiful,” he murmurs, and he kisses Sherlock gently, gently. It doesn’t feel like sadness, though. It feels like wonderment. It feels like reverence and it catches Sherlock by surprise, lodging something big and prickly in his throat, and he clutches John a little bit closer. John wraps an arm around him in return, pressing their bodies together. “You’re beautiful. Thank you.”

For a while they stand there, trading quiet kisses and whispering to each other, holding the moment crystalline and preserved between them for as long as possible, and Sherlock is awash with how much John loves him, and he can only hope that soon–-soon, soon, _soon_ –-John will know that Sherlock loves him just that much in return.


	20. All Wrapped Up

“Sherlock? Hey, come in here, I need your help.”

Sherlock sighs and puts his laptop aside. He follows the sound of John’s voice down to the bedroom, and is horrified to discover John with a small collection of gifts they’ve accumulated to pass out this year and two rolls of wrapping paper. One roll, a shiny red with a pattern of tiny hollies, is spread out on the bed, which is apparently the only clean flat surface in the flat.

“I need you to hold this in place while I do the tape,” John explains, holding up the baking sheets they bought for Mrs Hudson. “I’m terrible at wrapping as it is.”

Sherlock makes a face, but he takes the baking sheets so John can get the wrapping paper in order. “Why don’t we just use bags?” he asks disdainfully. “Just shove them in some bags, toss in some tissue paper, and call it a day.”

John rolls his eyes as he takes the baking sheets back and arranges them in the middle of far too big a swath of paper. “Because bags are lazy and awkward and wrapping paper makes it look nice.”

Clearly, this is some lesson imparted by someone John knew when he was very young and impressionable, probably his mother. It’s the sort of nonsensical argument that Sherlock’s mum would make about how she can’t possibly get him a  _gift certificate_ , that would be  _ridiculous._  Sherlock rolls his eyes and goes to hold the wrapping paper in place around the baking sheets while John fights with the roll of tape to get a piece off.  

They manage to get the wrapping done, though it’s not very tidy. John’s military neatness apparently does not extend a skill for folding in all aspects of his life, but John obviously is electing to ignore it so Sherlock just shoots him skeptical glances every time John looks over but keeps his mouth shut.

“Okay, grab me those stockings,” John says, trading out the shiny red paper for a dark blue paper with stars on it.

“Why are we trying to wrap soft stockings? Surely those can go in a bag, can’t they?”

John puts the red roll to the side and picks up a big, curly, silver bow from the side table, but instead of sticking it to the gift they’ve just finished, he reaches over and sticks it to Sherlock’s hair, grinning. “Deal with it,” he says cheerfully. “We’re using the paper.”

Sherlock plucks the bow off and tries to stick it to John’s forehead; John laughs and turns back to him, fighting him off, struggling to get the bow back from him. “Stop it now,” John says, but he’s laughing too hard to be taken seriously, so Sherlock slips one arm around his waist to hold him in place and uses the advantage of his longer limbs to hold the bow out of reach. John’s face is only centimetres away, brilliant blue eyes crinkled at the corners, giggling so hard Sherlock can see his teeth, and his tongue behind. He can pick out the colours of John’s hair, gold and bronze and silver, grey and tawny, and Sherlock is mesmerized by the magnificence of John in this easy joy.

John takes advantage of Sherlock’s distraction, of course, and pulls Sherlock closer at the same time he lifts up onto his toes to reach the bow, but Sherlock realises at the last moment and overcompensates to pull out of his reach and they both topple over, landing with John’s back half on the bed and half off, and Sherlock barely keeping his feet above him, convulsing with laughter. Sherlock drops the bow and instead grabs John’s arse, lifting him fully onto the bed and pressing into him, keeping him in place. The blue starry paper John had laid out already crinkles and scrunches, rustling loudly beneath them.

“Stop, stop, you’re ripping it,” John howls, fighting Sherlock half-heartedly, breathless as he tries to get his laughing under control, but he keeps breaking out with new giggles at the sound of the paper crunching and wrinkling, a veritable symphony that plays back their every move, and Sherlock wants to hear more of that, he wants to hear every touch and slide together, and suddenly everything slows down and heats into something molten and needy.

He leans down and kisses John, and apparently John has thought the same thing because it’s immediately filthy, wet and deep, tongues sliding and licking against each other, moaning into each other’s mouths. John’s hands are rushing over Sherlock’s body, plucking at his jacket and clutching at his shirt, pulling the hem out of his trousers so he can get his hands on Sherlock’s bare skin. It’s fast and hard, coming together like they’ve both been lit on fire, and Sherlock groans with the strength of his arousal flooding over him. He wants John, he wants John on the crinkling paper, he wants John  _now._

As soon as John’s fingers grab at him, cold and insistent, Sherlock’s hips roll of their own accord, and their cocks rub together through their trousers and they’re both hard already, harder than they’ve any right to be after a few kisses, but everything is hot and immediate and  _dirty_ , and the paper is still crumpling and rippling underneath them. Their arousal came on so fast that everything is desperate already.

Sherlock can’t wait, he can’t. They tear at each other’s clothes, gasping into each other’s mouths, and finally, finally, they manage to wrestle their trousers and pants down with just their cocks exposed but it’s enough,  _god_ , it’s enough. John grunts and groans and the wrapping paper beneath them rips and cracks, and John’s cock is huge and flushed with the rush of things, with how quickly their arousals have come down on them, beautiful and base. Sherlock shoves John’s hands away and takes them both in hand, thrusting against John as John thrusts back.

It’s quick and rough and practically depraved, the way they’re bearing down on one another, ruining the wrapping paper, and Sherlock only manages a dozen strokes before he looks down at the heads of their cocks peeking out of his fist, and says, “Fuck, John,  _yes_ ,” his voice cracking, chest heaving as he pants, and John comes. John comes  _hard_ , his back snapping off the bed and his hands pulling at huge fistfuls of Sherlock’s clothes, spurting over Sherlock’s hand and over his jeans, onto his shirt, as he writhes through his orgasm.

The noise of the paper beneath them slows as John does, and Sherlock finally releases him and focuses on his own cock, twisting around the head until he comes too, all over John’s slowly softening cock and his shirt and his pants.  

They lay there a moment, catching their breath and giggling into each other’s mouths, and when finally they move to get up, Sherlock leaves a huge, sticky handprint right in the middle of the wrapping paper. John rolls his eyes again, but he’s smiling, and he presses a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth anyway. Apparently he can’t be bothered to get fussed about it at this point.

“Oops,” Sherlock says, delighted. “I’ll guess we’ll have to use bags after all.”


	21. Christmas Movies

John starts preparations early, far earlier than really necessary, early enough that Sherlock has plenty of time to notice and deduce what he was preparing for, despite having been elbow deep in several books all afternoon.

“You’ve moved the telly to the middle of the room,” Sherlock notes, looking up as John steps back and surveys his work to make sure the view from the sofa is the best possible. “So you’re planning to watch something special.”

“Got it in one,” John says, pecking Sherlock’s cheek and dancing off, apparently pleased as punch that Sherlock was going to guess. John makes a motion like he’s zipping his lips-–apparently no more clues will be forthcoming. He’ll have to wait for John to reveal something else.

An hour later, Sherlock looks up from his book again. “You’ve drawn the curtains, but turned on all the fairy lights, so it’s a Christmassy special sort of thing.”

“Yep,” John confirms, popping the _p_ dramatically and smirking, but resolutely not giving himself away. Sherlock pulls out his mobile to start checking the listings.

There are _loads_ of stupid thing on telly these days, though, so the listings aren’t particularly helpful. He looks up again as John piles an armful of blankets onto the sofa. “You intend me to watch it with you,” Sherlock says slowly. “So it must be something you were fond of watching as a child. Not _Scrooged_ , then, you’re too old for that–” “–Hey!–” “–and you couldn’t possibly expect me to watch _A Christmas Story,_ never really have understood the appeal of that one. So it must be _It’s a Wonderful Life_.”

John wanders into the kitchen, shifting his hips and shoulders to some rhythm that’s in his head, and pulls out a bowl for popcorn. “Nope!”

Sherlock frowns and goes back to scrolling through the telly listings, looking for what else it could possibly be. John finishes the popcorn, grabs a couple of beers out of the fridge, and comes back to the sitting room and plops down onto the sofa. He pats the spot next to him, rearranging the blankets. “Come on, come on, you’ll find out in just a moment.”

The listings are no help anyway, so Sherlock puts his mobile aside and shuffles over. He folds himself onto the sofa, tucking his body close to John’s so that John can wrap his arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and hold him close. John puts the bowl of popcorn on Sherlock’s lap and reaches for the remote, fiddling with it as he finds the appropriate channel, and then:

“John, is this–-are you serious?”

John shakes with laughter next to him and presses an affectionate kiss to Sherlock’s hair. “Every year since it came out,” John says, “Although I wasn’t exactly a child.”

“This isn’t a Christmas movie, I’d have never guessed this,” Sherlock harrumphs, but he scooches just a little bit closer to John’s side. “That’s cheating.”

“It is too,” John protests lightly. “They’re at a Christmas party and everything. I’ve watched this movie every Christmas since it first came out. _Die Hard_ is a classic holiday tradition. Now be quiet. Here, eat some popcorn.”

Sherlock huffs again but settles in. John is warm, after all, and he’s wearing a buttery smooth cashmere jumper that Sherlock picked out, and he’s absently rubbing up and down Sherlock’s arm. The idea of John setting this up to share with him makes something bloom warm and red in Sherlock’s chest, and it could be the worst, stupidest movie in the history of film and Sherlock would still sit here and watch it with him.

This is what being married will be like, Sherlock decides. Sitting through some ridiculous action movie and snuggling on the sofa, not necessarily because Sherlock wants to watch _Die Hard,_ because he was really pretty interested in the next chapter of his book, but because John wants to watch _Die Hard with him._

It’s a choice. It’s a choice Sherlock is making because he wants to make John happy, and it is undeniably making John happy, to be here with him like this. And Sherlock could have chosen not to be here with John, or he could have chosen to fuss about being made to watch something silly, or he could have chosen to bring his book with him, and all of those things might not have made John angry, but he wouldn’t have been _as_ happy.

Some people think love is just a thing that happens, and once it happens, it will keep happening of its own accord. They talk about soulmates, about fate and undeniability and inescapable bonds. It’s not like that, not really. Love takes effort. Sometimes love hurts, and sometimes love is hard to commit to. Sherlock knows it too well, because he watched John get married to someone else and he thought, then, that he was going to cut John out of himself. He was going to sever John from his sternum, and if it took drugs and distance to accomplish it, he’d have done it.

In the end, Sherlock didn’t get the chance, because as soon as Sherlock had sunk down into it, John had pulled him right back out, and then there was Mary where she shouldn’t have been, and everything happened so fast from there. And on the other side of it was John with his things packed into a single shoulder bag, coming home for good, stepping up to kiss Sherlock like he’d waited his whole life to do it.

They’re going to fight, sometimes. They’re going to hurt each other because that’s what people do, and they’ve done it before and it would be foolish to think they’ll never do it again. Sherlock is going to get irritated at the 2,607th time John sniffs while he’s upset, and they’re going to argue and say hurtful things, and John will rush off to a pint at the pub and Sherlock will storm around and refuse to come to bed.

Sometimes they’ll drift apart, too. They each need their space, and the two of them perhaps even more than others, given their pasts and they things they’ve seen. Sometimes John is quiet and distant and sometimes Sherlock hasn’t got any words to give anybody, even John, and sometimes that will grate. Sometimes they will struggle to reach out to each other.  And they could let these things come between them, but to love, and to act out of love, is a choice, just like watching this movie with John is a choice, and Sherlock wants to remember this moment as a reminder to choose John.

Love isn’t a steady constant, either, and Sherlock knows that now. These days, he loves John so fiercely, so strongly that it almost tears him open with the force of it, but he hasn’t always. In the days before John’s first wedding, Sherlock had held his love tiny and fluttering in his hands, weak and on the verge of going out. Before Sherlock left, his love had waxed and waned, sometimes overwhelming and sometimes just shimmering, uncertain, along the edges.

He knows John feels it too. He knows that sometimes John’s love is big and loud and pushes at the very limits of John’s being, and sometimes John’s love is small and hesitant, and sometimes John’s love is forgotten under anger and fear.

But love is a choice, and as long as they always choose to come back to this, as long as they each can manage to always choose to take an offered spot on the sofa and feel for each other’s heartbeats every so often, their love will last. It won’t be easy. It won’t be simple. But it will be _worth it_.

Sherlock wants their marriage to be like this for the rest of their lives: choosing each other, choosing _Die Hard_ on a Monday night when there is research to be done because _Die Hard_ matters for whatever reason, choosing to trust one another, to believe one another, when someone says that _Die Hard_ matters, choosing to share _Die Hard_ because it matters and building each other up so they aren’t afraid to share the things that matter.

Sherlock snorts at himself–- _Die Hard_ as a metaphor, honestly, he’s going soft with sentimentality–-and shifts closer to John, practically half in his lap. John hums and rubs a little harder at Sherlock’s arm, though, and if sentimentality is what this moment is made of, so be it.


	22. Snowed In

When Sherlock shuffles out of the bedroom the next morning, it’s to find John, already showered and dressed, looking mournfully out the sitting room windows. “Should’ve gone to Tesco yesterday,” John sighs, as though the world is ending. **  
**

Sherlock goes over and wraps his arms around John’s shoulders, still warm and sort of sleepy in his dressing gown and pyjamas, and looks out. It snowed overnight, leaving everything coated in a shimmering layer of white. The sun is brilliantly bright, reflecting off the snow, and it won’t last long. It’s beginning to melt down already.

“Shush, no you shouldn’t have,” Sherlock mumbles with his mouth in John’s hair. “Yesterday was perfect just as it was.”

He can’t see John’s face, but he can feel John frowning at himself. “I didn’t do much at all in the afternoon, though. While you were reading. I could’ve gone.”

“John, it’s not like we’re snowed in. If we really need to go, we can go.”

“We need milk,” John tells him, as melodramatic as John ever is. He hates snow, doesn't like to go out in it, refuses to be caught in it even there's even a remote possibility of it happening, and Sherlock can't help but find it endearingly ridiculous. “We need milk, and neither of us have really good shoes to be going out in the snow, and we’ll get all wet through and your shoes particularly will be impossible to dry out without ruining them, and–”

Sherlock cuts him off with a big kiss to his cheek. “I’ll go get some milk from Mrs Hudson, then. The snow will melt before tonight, and if we really need to go out tonight and get some more, we’ll pick up some kebabs or something on the way back.”

John huffs and settles and then turns in Sherlock’s arms to kiss him properly. Sherlock can still feel a bit of a frown around the corners of his mouth, and he kisses John a little bit harder to get rid of it, nipping at his mouth in playful reprimand.

“You stay here,” Sherlock says, letting go of John and patting his bum just because he can. “I’ll go see if Mrs Hudson’s got anything in.”

John grumbles, but turns back to watch the snow melting slowly out the window, and Sherlock is suddenly a bundle of nerves, because this is the _perfect_ opportunity for the very last thing Sherlock needs to do before Christmas.

He needs to tell Mrs Hudson.

She deserves to know. Lestrade knows, Molly knows, Mrs Hudson deserves to know, too. Although it’s now only days away, Sherlock knows that if it comes out that everyone knew but her, she’d be terribly disappointed. And she’s _important_ , she’s the most important friend they’ve got, she’s been like a mother to them. She coos and coddles and makes tea and biscuits and scones, and scolds when they’ve gone too long without hoovering and looks on, so fondly it seems her heart might be breaking, whenever she catches them together.

 _And you know,_ Sherlock thinks, remembering the way she had looked the last time she’d seen Florida authorities take Frank Hudson away, _maybe it is, just a little bit._

The trip down the stairs and down the hall to her door makes Sherlock feel a bit woozy as all the blood in his body devotes itself to rearranging his digestive tract. What will he do if Mrs Hudson thinks it is a bad idea? What will he do if she says it’s not the right time, if she frowns and says, _oh, so soon after Mary?_

He shakes himself and knocks on her door. Ultimately, he supposes, it shouldn’t really matter what Mrs Hudson thinks. Sherlock isn’t proposing to her, he’s proposing to John, and she doesn’t have anything to do with it. He doesn’t need her approval. He doesn’t.

 _What if, though,_ his mind churns, as he waits for her to answer her door. _What if?_

The door opens and Mrs Hudson’s smiling face appears. “Oh, Sherlock–”

“I’m going to ask John to marry me,” Sherlock blurts.

There’s a moment of stunned silence and Sherlock kicks himself. What if John heard that upstairs? Sherlock had been sure to close the door to the flat behind him, but what if? But Mrs Hudson gasps and giggles, and then puts a hand over her mouth, looking down the hall toward the stairs to make sure that John’s not hanging over the railing, listening in. She takes him by the hand and whispers, exaggeratedly, still giggling a little, “I think you’d better come in, then.”

“You have to swear to secrecy,” he says as they go into her kitchen. He should have started with that, he should have asked first if she could keep a secret, even though he knows she can. His hands flutter nervously around him as Sherlock tries to impress the importance of it upon her. “I mean it, Hudders, absolute secrecy. Not Mrs Turner, not Mr Chatterjee, not even your sister, don’t even call her, don’t talk to anyone, and remember there are plenty of details about Frank Hudson’s drug cartel I didn’t tell the police–”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Mrs Hudson interrupts, laughing at him and steering him into a chair at her table. “You’ll not blackmail me today, young man, and it would do you good to remember there are plenty of your secrets too I’ve kept over the years.” She practically shoves him into the seat and then turns to start her kettle. “Now, tell me everything.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “I can’t, I just came to get some milk for John’s tea, he’ll suspect–”

“Everything,” she insists. Her smile is so big and Sherlock can’t resist her. “You can blame it on me when you get back up there.”

Sherlock eyes her dubiously, giving her a face so she knows exactly how he feels about it, but Mrs Hudson can be a formidable force to be reckoned with and if he denies her, there’s no doubt that she’ll get him back some way or another. “Christmas night,” Sherlock says, giving in. “I’ve got a ring and everything. I’m just going to ask and hope he says yes.” There really isn’t much else to say.

“Oh, how exciting,” Mrs Hudson practically cheers, patting his hand as she takes the seat across from him. “He’ll say yes. He’s devoted to you, Sherlock. Oh, the two of you, getting _married_ , it’ll be lovely.”

Sherlock blushes and looks away. “I’m devoted to him, at least. I hope so. I really do.”

The hand on his wrist squeezes tightly and Mrs Hudson leans in close, as though sharing a wondrous truth. “Don’t you even think it. He adores you.” Then she gets up and hugs her to him. “He loves you, you silly man. He loves you. And I do too.”

Mrs Hudson smells like rose perfume and lemon cleaning solutions and Sherlock hugs her back for a brief moment. “I know,” he tells her. “He does, I know he does. I love him too. And you, of course. Of course.”

She pats his shoulder. “And you must let me help with the planning this time. The last time–-it was just awful,” she glares at him and wags her finger, “and don’t think I don’t know that you had something to do with all that. Terrible food, the _wine_ , ugh, nothing matched properly, and all the yellow!”

Sherlock has the good grace to look embarrassed, because of course he had something to do with that, and then he can’t help but grin because of course Mrs Hudson knew and didn’t say anything. She can be a wily old woman herself. “Yes, well. I sincerely doubt there will be anything yellow, this time around.”

“Good,” Mrs Hudson says, then she pats his cheek again and gives him a mug full of milk and shoos him out, “Before he catches on!” and Sherlock suddenly finds himself standing in the foyer with a grin on his face and more love in his life than he ever dared to dream he might have.


	23. All I Want For Christmas Is You

The fog is deep and dark and thick, weighing heavy on Sherlock’s bones. He scrambles and stumbles, feeling like he should be able to take big handfuls of it and pull himself through, but it just slips through his fingers, and he struggles toward the light at the edges of his consciousness. The light in the distance is a blaze, a fiery tower of tension and fear and distress, and Sherlock wrenches himself toward it, out of sleep, into waking.

Sherlock tears his eyes open as he reaches the flames through the fog, and at first, he’s not sure which of them is having the nightmare.

The sheets are damp with sweat and twisted around their bodies, and on the other side of the bed John is curled into himself, shaking with the strain of holding his muscles taut, his hands clenched into fists. There’s a whine building in the back of John’s throat and Sherlock knows this soft, desperate sound is the noise that lit his dreams on fire, it is the noise that called Sherlock forward, and watching John try to keep it behind his teeth even in sleep makes Sherlock’s throat feel hot and full of something terrible.

Nightmares are not, unfortunately, an infrequent occurrence in John and Sherlock’s bed. Horrible memories lead to horrible dreams, after all, and their pasts brim to bursting with pain and horror and terror. There are dreams about Afghanistan and overdosing, when they wake up still choking on sand and dirt and blood. There are dreams about the pool and the split second betrayal of mistaking John for Moriarty that felt like a brand on both their chests, and the pavements outside Bart’s and the way John held Sherlock’s name in his mouth as he tried to find his pulse.

“John,” Sherlock croaks as soon as he can open his mouth. “John, wake up.”

There were long nights spent alone, in strange rooms, in the bottoms of bottles, in pain and in fear. Sherlock’s blood seeping into his shirt, into the carpets, into the cavities of his body, and John’s voice, _we’re losing you,_ spoken so calmly because he knew, already, what that would be like if Sherlock were lost.

“John. John, wake up now, you have to wake up now,” Sherlock says, and he tries not to beg. “Come out of it, now, wake up.”

There was Mary’s gun pointed at John’s head and both their breathes caught in their throats. There were flash drives burning among the Christmas logs. The spread of Magnussen’s body over his blood on the patio. _Sherlock is actually a girl’s name_ , a handshake instead of a hug, a wasted goodbye.

Sherlock shifts up into a sitting position, just out of John’s reach, just in case, and raises his voice, speaks a little louder, a little quicker. He tries to force himself to stay calm, but John is fighting, now, he’s working toward waking, Sherlock can tell, but he’s still making that noise. “John. John, come on, come back, John.”

There was the weight of the baby, the tiny life they’d worked so hard to protect and sacrificed so much for, leaving John’s hands as he gave away fatherhood to a DNA workup. _She’s not mine_ , John had said, as if that just erased nine months of planning and expectations, as if that was enough to snuff out the love for her he’d let himself build. _She’s not mine_ , he said, and he’d meant both the baby in her father’s arms and the woman who’d birthed her, and Sherlock had led him away.

Then there’s a shudder, and a gasp as John comes awake, and then suddenly everything is very quiet and very still and John stays, curled around himself, holding his breath and he tries to get his bearings.

After a moment, Sherlock can’t help himself. “John,” he says again, in relief, in hope, in askance.

John lets out a sob.

In an instant Sherlock is there, laying back out next to him and stroking his fingers over John’s back, gently but still firm, enough to remind John that he’s not alone without demanding his attention. There’s nothing else Sherlock can do, really. He wishes there were some tangible enemy he could defeat to save them both from nights like these, but there isn’t. The dragons have already been slayed, but that doesn’t put out the fires of fear the dragons lit in the knights that went to defeat them.

Even heroes burn.

“It’s okay,” Sherlock whispers helplessly, “It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay.”  

Eventually John’s breathing evens out and the trembling stops and he takes a deep breath. “Sherlock.” He doesn’t say it like he wants anything in particular; just like he wants to say it, like it comforts him to say it, and Sherlock’s chest aches.

“You want anything? Water? Soda crackers, clear your mouth a bit?”

John shakes his head and for a while they just lay there, listening to each other breath as Sherlock strokes over John’s neck and shoulders, smooth and even and slow, giving him a rhythm to breath to in the draw of his fingers.

Then John says, “Give me your hand.”

Sherlock does, reaching over John’s ribs to clasp their hands together, wiggling his fingers between John’s. But John immediately shakes it away and twists his hand so he can take Sherlock’s wrist instead, so he can take Sherlock’s pulse. Sherlock blinks and swallows, blinks and swallows, and John says, “Sometimes you still frighten me.”  

The words sink into Sherlock and he thinks he can feel them, etching themselves into his skin like a razor-blade. He shuts his eyes, tries to draw his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “I’m so sorry, John, tell me what to do, tell me if I should–” _If I should leave._

John finally shifts and turns over. His eyes are red-rimmed and weary, and he’s sticky where the sweat is beginning to dry, but he pulls Sherlock close and tucks his head under his chin. “You’re doing it, love. Being here, with me. Bringing me back.”

Sherlock fusses in his new position, because it’s him that should be doing the comforting, not the other way around, but John hushes him.

“I don’t know how I would get through this if you weren’t here, Sherlock,” John tells him, as though he can hear Sherlock’s mind churning, wondering if he should let John go, back out into the world where he can find someone less terrifying. “Don’t make me do this without you, okay? I need you here.”

Sherlock doesn’t nod in agreement, but he doesn’t pull away either. They brush their hands over each other’s bodies, breathing into each other’s skin, and John is so alive, and so right here, and eventually Sherlock’s heartbeat slows and evens and he feels himself starting to get sleepy again, lulled by the heat and solidity of John.

“Were you having a nightmare too?” John asks quietly, pressing his lips into Sherlock’s hair.

Sherlock hums. “I’m not sure, actually. I think so? I could feel that you were, I think, even before I woke up.”

John’s hands stroke through his curls and Sherlock presses just a tiny bit closer. “It’s okay, you know. We’re not in any way unusual to still be struggling through some of this stuff. It’s not that I don’t love you enough, or that you don’t love me enough, okay, so don’t you ever think that.”

“I want to make it go away, some way to make it right–”

“Stop,” John cuts off. “We are human beings, and pain and hurt, those sorts of things, Sherlock, they don’t just go away. It’s not like you get a clean slate just because it’s over.” His hands drop down and his fingers trace along in a distinct line; Sherlock knows there’s a scar there, still vivid and ugly two years later. There always will be.

“I know you feel it too, sometimes. It …” John struggles to find the word, and finally he settles on, “aches. But it’ll fade. I don’t dream about Afghanistan very much anymore, did you know that? I dream about other stuff, more recent stuff, and we’ll build over it, Sherlock, okay? Together. We’ll build over it and we’ll die old and happy and grey next to each other in bed, dreaming about all the life we lived together. I love you, and we’re going to make loads and loads of happy memories from here on.”  

John tilts up Sherlock's face so he can kiss him softly on the mouth. “All I want is you, bumble. Just you.” 

Here, tucked close against John’s body with John’s heart beating slower and steadier in his ears, it feels safe. It feels protected and secure, like John is the shield and the squire and the lionhearted king all at once, and as John kisses him and holds him close, holds him tightly, suddenly Sherlock understands. 

John makes him feel protected and safe and loved, and _Sherlock_  makes _John_  feel that way, too. 

Sherlock can’t speak. He wants to jump out of bed right now and find the secret blue velvet box and take out the ring and promise every imagined future to John, but when he starts to pull away, John pulls him right back. “Come on, now. Stay here with me. I’m tired and you’re tired, and I want to fall asleep like this, okay? Is that okay?”

He nods, and he can feel John settle deeper into the blankets, deeper into their cuddle, almost down to sleeping.

A few seconds later, John adds, “Breathe, Sherlock.”

Sherlock breathes.


	24. St Nicholas

_Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow._

The thought thrums through Sherlock’s veins, hot and silky, beating out the syllables in each contraction of his heart. _Tomorrow, tomorrow_. He finds himself all jumbled up, wringing sweaty palms and trying to hide his unbearably goofy grins in turn, trying not to give himself away at the last minute. He’s triple-checked that the ring is still in its place, that it’s still the right sized, that it still exists, that John is still in the sitting room, that his book is still on the nightstand, that his toothbrush is still nestled next to Sherlock’s in the bathroom.

It’s so close. It’s so very, very close.

For all his nerves, though, it’s actually been a soft, quietly comfortable day. They’d slept in, wrapped around each other, and then lingered in bed when they did wake, brushing fingertips over each other’s bodies, tracing over old scars and reminders with gentle kisses and whispers about the miracle of second chances. John had eased them both into coming, all tender touches and breathy encouragements, and Sherlock let the languid morning pass into afternoon without a thought to spare for worrying.

Eventually they’d gotten out of bed and into the shower, and traded the gentleness for giggles and kisses beneath the spray and white foamy Santa beards made out of soap lather. After, there had been tea in their pyjamas and dressing gowns, leaning against the worktop and ripping pieces of toast off with their fingers and leaving buttery fingerprints on each other’s cheeks, laughing.

More than once, Sherlock thought about going and getting the ring, asking and getting it done and over with, but he had a plan and he wants to stick to it: 221B with Christmas all around them, the fairy lights and the fireplace, the violin late into the evening, John with the simple happiness of being together on their first Christmas glittering in his eyes.

They order out to their usual Chinese for dinner and give the delivery boy an extra thirty pounds just because Sherlock happens to have it in his wallet. They spread it out over the coffee table and watch bad telly, eating their fill of egg rolls and dumplings and black pepper chicken, fighting over the shrimp in the kung pao combination and divvying up the mushrooms (John’s) and the pea pods (Sherlock’s).

When they’re full and sated, John finds a version of _A Christmas Carol_ from the 80’s playing and they settle in, poking fun at the special effects and grazing on the leftovers. It’s comfortable and easy and Sherlock could sink down into evenings like this for the rest of his life with John. There’s no one calling their phones with this murder or that--in fact, Sherlock can’t even remember the last time he checked his website for a decent case--and no one is leaving cryptic notes or mysterious messages. It’s just them, alone together, warm and laughing, and Sherlock knows that he could never solve another case in his life and if he were with John, it would still be okay.

He also knows that with John, he’ll never have to make the choice, and perhaps that in itself is what has brought them together, what binds them: they are entirely themselves, with all Sherlock’s eccentricities and John’s struggle toward propriety, with all Sherlock’s capacity for commonplace rudeness and John’s capacity for unexpected coldness when rubbed up the wrong way, with experiments in the fridge and romanticised cases on a website.

But for all that their edges clash, they also combine.

They soothe and smooth each other, they ease each other into and out of situations that make them uncomfortable, they make each other better, but only by their own strange, extraordinary standards, and no one else’s.

John is exceptional, astonishing, nearly bizarre at times and at others reassuringly consistent. And Sherlock, who has never been called _normal_ in his life, cannot get enough of John Watson.

When he looks up again the telly is turned off and John is wearing the skull’s Santa hat as he takes Sherlock’s hand. “Come on, you. We’d better get to bed.” He winks, huge and exaggerated. “Wouldn’t want to run into Santa Claus down here, would we?”

Sherlock snorts, but allows John to pull him up out of his seat. “Santa Claus is a fiction invented by parents as training to teach their children to believe in abstract ideas that will be used to control them,” he reasons, but there’s no heat in it.

John laughs. “No Santa for you as a child, then?”

“John.” Sherlock gives him a look, and John laughs again.

“I know, I know, Mummy’s a particle physicist. Still, it doesn’t hurt to teach kids about believing in ideas. Traditions, history, none of that is particularly harmful. Santa’s just the first in a long line of intangible concepts.”

“Like love,” Sherlock says.

John stops in the hall and turns, sliding his hands over Sherlock’s hips. “No,” he contradicts softly, gazing up at Sherlock with a smile behind his eyes. “No, not at all. Love isn’t an intangible thing. I feel your love every day. I can see it all the time, the way you love me.”

Sherlock dips his head and kisses him, showing him the depth and strength and weight of all his love, and John gives it back, pours back into the kiss all the affection and passion and acceptance and fun and hope. There’s so much hope, Sherlock thinks, in the way John kisses him, and they are mere hours from tomorrow, and Christmas, and the question that will _hopefully_ fill their future with the tangible touch and feel of love surrounding.

John pulls back just a tiny bit and strokes his thumbs over the sensitive places just below Sherlock’s ears and Sherlock can see all his love written in every inch of him. “Let’s go to bed,” John says, and Sherlock follows him, to bed, to tomorrow, to the rest of their lives together.


	25. Christmas Morning

Morning comes on slowly. The sunrise creeps over the steel and stone horizon of London, crawling across the carpets and up the spines of the books on the shelves, stretching over the papers on the desk and the faded fabrics of John’s chair. Sherlock stands, leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and sitting room, and watches the dawn drive out the dark, lighting up 221B with the hushed brilliance of Christmas.

He’s going to ask John to marry him today.

Sherlock only managed a few hours of sleep the night before, and he’d woken up just before five with a jittery stomach and jangling skeleton. He had watched John for a while, studying the smoothness of his face in sleep, the smudge of his eyelashes, the soft curl of his fingers relaxed on the sheets. Sherlock had felt too full, watching him, too close to bursting, so he’d gotten up quietly, careful not to wake him.

Sherlock has turned on all the fairy lights and started a small fire, just big enough for an extra splash of heat and comforting crackle and pop of the logs, and turned on a quiet playlist of instrumental Christmas carols. He’s lined up all the makings of Christmas breakfast--French toast and rashers, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, big bowls of sliced pears and peeled oranges, hot cocoa with whipped cream, or coffee or tea, and there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge as well, just in case. Sherlock has John’s actual Christmas gift, the permit for his firearm and the pass for a private afternoon at a shooting range, settled into a box which he painstakingly wrapped with a second, difficult-to-find roll of the same dark blue paper with silver stars he and John had ruined several days ago.

It’s going to be a fantastic Christmas, Sherlock thinks, no matter what happens. It’s going to be the best Christmas they’ve ever had, because they’re together.

Down the hall, Sherlock can hear the sounds of John waking up. He calls it up in his mind’s eye, watching for himself what he knows is happening in the bedroom: John reaching first for the other side of the bed and being put out that Sherlock isn’t there, then snuffling sleepily into his pillow for a moment, brow furrowed adorably as he decides to get up. Sherlock is almost disappointed that he’s missing it, but if he were to go back now and crawl back in next to John, John would just yelp at his cold toes and complain about his chilly fingers, so he might as well wait.

Eventually--after using the bathroom, brushing his teeth, possibly spending a few minutes in the mirror examining some imagined flaw--John comes out to the sitting room, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown. He slumps over to Sherlock, who turns to receive him, and drapes himself into Sherlock’s arms, warm and sleep-mussed and smiling.

“Merry Christmas,” Sherlock says, giving John a bit of a kiss.

“Mm. Merry Christmas,” John returns, mumbling a bit. “Got you something.”

Sherlock glances over at his own starry blue gift, alone on the mantelpiece. He’d known, of course, that John was getting him something, but now that he thought of it, he’d seen neither hide nor hair of a potential Christmas present. John giggles as he watches Sherlock realise that John has slipped something by him. “It’s upstairs,” John explains, yawning, aiming a kiss for Sherlock’s mouth and hitting half his cheek instead. “I’ll be right back.”

John goes up to his old bedroom and comes back down with a large-ish rectangular white box, about the size of a sheet of paper but about two inches deep, with a gigantic red and green velvet trimmed ribbon. He hands it to Sherlock with a grin, looking much more awake than he had been just moments ago, and a bit anxious, too.

Sherlock hadn’t thought to be nervous about _receiving_ a gift this year, but the shy look on John’s face sets his nerves to jumping. He hadn’t really given a whole lot of thought to what John might be getting him, in part because he didn’t want to accidentally deduce it, but also in part because he had been so wrapped up in his own plans. John should count himself fortunate, Sherlock thinks wryly as he undoes the ribbon, because it might be the last year he manages to keep his present a secret. Sherlock tosses the ribbon in John’s direction, giving him a reassuring smile, and lifts off the top of the box.

Inside is a neat stack of paper, fastened along one edge with professional spiral binding. It’s a book, of sorts--a manuscript, Sherlock realises. In the center of the page, it reads in tidy block print:

_A STUDY IN PINK_

_John H. Watson, MD_

“Can’t tell you how hard it’s been to do this with you around all the time,” John says nervously, trying to fill the silence. “I’ve been using Mrs Hudson’s laptop even, when you’re out, because you steal mine all the time. I put in all your deductions, this time, as well as I could remember, all the stuff about how you solved in, the stuff you always say is missing from the blog.”

Sherlock blinks down at the manuscript and carefully, gingerly, he lifts it out of the box. It’s thick and heavy and Sherlock imagines John, tapping away at Mrs Hudson’s laptop in secret stolen moments to write all this down, to flesh out their first case, their first story, and Sherlock can’t think past the endless loop of _John John John, oh, how I love you, John._

Next to him, John fidgets. “It’s, um. It’s for you, but it’s also for me,” he says, starting to explain. “It’s for us both.”

Finally, Sherlock manages to get his mouth to do something productive. “John, it’s--this is--this is our first case.”

“Um, yeah,” John says hesitantly. “It is. But it’s also, you know, a bit of a biography.”

Sherlock tears his eyes away from the manuscript and looks over at John, who is looking back at him with a cautious grin. “A biography?”

John runs his fingers through his unruly hair as he searches for the right words. “It’s not just about our first case together,” John says, “because meeting you, Sherlock, and the--the importance of it, the weight of it, of meeting you, of you coming into my life--it was never _just_ about the cases.”

And he reaches over and turns the first page, revealing a dedications page. _For Sherlock,_ it reads, _who I have loved since page 57._

Trembling, Sherlock turns to page 57.

 _There we were, somehow, breathless and leaning against the wall, and I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in months. When he started giggling, low and easy, his smile lopsided and broad, spreading the lines at the corners of his eyes down into his cheeks, I knew it had very little to do with the flat, and everything to do with standing next to Sherlock Holmes. I had to press my fingertips into the textured wallpaper, then, so I wouldn’t reach for him, so I wouldn’t turn right then and take his face in my hands and kiss him._

_Then there was a knock on the door, and Angelo stood on the other side of it, offering back my cane. I hadn’t realised until just then that I didn’t have it, that I was standing on my own two feet, that I had been running, free and unburdened, and I knew that I would do whatever it took to be with Sherlock, as flatmates or friends, in whatever way he’d have me. And I looked back at him, still pressed against the wall, and he smiled at me, soft and knowing, as if to say, ‘you’re not alone—I feel it too.’_

Sherlock swallows. He swallows again. The papers in his hands are shaking. The words on the page begin to blur.

“John,” he whispers, stunned and amazed to see this moment in print, to see it written back for him so vividly. Sherlock has thought about this moment a hundred thousand times or more, has wondered how it might have been different if Mrs Hudson hadn’t interrupted, or if he’d not been such an anxious fool at Angelo’s, or if any of a dozen other things. This was the moment Sherlock had come back to, time and again, when he was alone out in the world, and then alone back in 221B, wondering what he’d lost by not acting when he’d had the chance. “I did know, I did--I did feel it--”

John takes the manuscript out of Sherlock’s hands, setting it on the seat of Sherlock’s chair and then turning back and taking Sherlock’s hands in his. He pulls Sherlock close and kisses his wavering bottom lip. 

“I loved you then,” John says softly, “and I love you now, and I always will, Sherlock. I want to thank you for everything, everything you did, everything you’ve done, and I hope that by the time you’re done reading it, you’ll know just how much I have to thank you for.”

“John,” Sherlock says, and Sherlock kisses him, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He hasn’t got the words, he hasn’t got the power in all his being to tell John what John means to him, what this manuscript, this retelling of their story at the very beginning, means to him, so Sherlock kisses him, and hopes that John can understand the strength of what Sherlock cannot say in the slow slide of lips and fierce clench of hands, holding John to him.

Then Sherlock pulls back, eyes wide, gasping, understanding--now. Now, right now, it has to be right now, it has to be here and now, and sod the violin and the late night slow coming together. They’re crashing in on each other already, _right now_ , and Sherlock needs to anchor it, this moment, he needs to capture it, he needs to hold it forever in his hands. He needs to promise to keep it, to protect it, to remember always what it was like to stand in the brilliant light of Christmas morning and understand that even though he and John have been separated, they’ve never truly been apart.

“Stay, stay right here,” Sherlock says, disentangling himself from John. “Let me just--Don’t move--”

Sherlock barrels down the hall, leaving John in the sitting room, giggling in the wake of Sherlock’s flurry, and rips open his sock index. The sapphire blue velvet box is waiting, caught in a sunbeam, and Sherlock holds his breath as he lifts it out. He opens the box with reverence and inside, the silver ring gleams with promise and invitation. Sherlock wiggles it out of its place and stands for a moment, holding it in his palm, the morning light filtering in around the curtains. He takes a deep breath.

He feels totally, utterly calm.

Sherlock goes back out to the sitting room. John is still standing in the middle of the room, right where Sherlock had left him, waiting in his pyjamas and his dressing gown with a soft, amused smile. He is almost painfully gorgeous, standing in the middle of 221B with the evidence of their life together settled around him, with the Christmas cards taped to the mirror with all their _John &Sherlocks, Sherlock&Johns_ inside, standing watch, with the fairy lights glittering around the windows and the fire flickering and popping against the bright chilly morning, with some soft piano in the background playing _The First Noel,_ with Mrs Hudson downstairs, preparing to come up and share breakfast with them in about an hour, with his eyes on Sherlock, only on Sherlock, only ever on Sherlock.

Sherlock takes John’s face in his hands, one palm lined up along John’s jaw, one fist curled around the treasure in his hand nudging along John’s cheek. He kisses John, long and gentle, trying to say without words, _I love you, I need you, I need you beside me for the rest of my life._

When he pulls back, John stays, eyes closed, as if committing the kiss to memory. Sherlock takes the opportunity and kisses both his eyelids, and the tip of his nose, and his mouth again one more time, for courage, and then leans his forehead down against John’s.

“John,” he murmurs. His breath catches in his throat. The magnitude of the moment is nearly overwhelming. John rubs his thumbs in circles over Sherlock’s hips, encouraging, and Sherlock starts again. “John. You are the best, and wisest, most perfect, and perfectly flawed human being I have ever known.” He takes a breath, shaky, and opens his eyes. John is smiling, eyes still closed. “I do have a heart, you know,” he moves his palm from John’s jaw down, so that it covers the hammering beat in John’s chest, “and you carry it for me.”

Sherlock takes a deep breath. John’s eyes open, and so does Sherlock’s hand. The silver ring sits in the middle of his palm, and it seems small and heavy, and he quakes with the weight of it. He raises his gaze from the ring to John and finds John looking back, eyes wide, lips split into a giddy grin, and the question spills forth, eager, fearless, hopeful.

“John, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” John says, nearly before Sherlock has even finished. He’s beaming, wide and wild, and his eyes, John’s lapis lazuli eyes, are wet and brimming and crinkled at the corners, and he laughs and laughs and repeats himself. “Yes, Sherlock, of  _course_ I will, of course, yes.”

And John surges up, nearly knocking the ring out of Sherlock’s palm as John kisses him, and he kisses him and kisses him and their cheeks are wet and they’re laughing and crying at the same time, with joy, with wonder, with bliss and delight and finally, together, sliding Sherlock’s ring onto John’s left hand, with peace.

“Here,” John says, pulling away, wiping at his eyes, bubbling over with excitement, and he reaches for the manuscript again. He flips to the last page. “Look, I was right.”

Sherlock looks. He reads the last line, and he laughs, and he takes John back into his arms with their hands clasped together so he can feel the bright cool shine of his ring on John’s finger, and kisses him again. 

_This was how it ends, how it will always end, even if the world were to explode tomorrow: Sherlock and I, smiling at each other from across the room, forever together and always in 221B._


	26. An Epilogue: John

John Watson is in love.

Everything is dark and quiet and peaceful, and across the pillowcases, Sherlock is still sleeping. He’s warm, a long line of soft skin and steady breath under the blankets, and when John slipped into waking in the middle of the night, he found himself captivated and could not look away.

John is going to marry him.

The thought makes John giddy and he runs his thumb over the smooth metal band on his fourth finger. It’s warm, just now, made so by the heat of their bodies underneath the covers, and the weight of it is a visceral comfort, a heavy, solid reminder that Sherlock wants him, Sherlock loves him, and Sherlock asked him to stay. Sherlock asked him to stay _forever_.

John slides his hand over the sheets and finds the loose curl of Sherlock’s, dipping down automatically to check his pulse. It thumps on, slow and even, and John can feel the call of his own name in it. The way Sherlock loves him still takes John’s breath away. The way Sherlock loves him still makes John blink with disbelief sometimes, but here, in the twist of their bodies reaching for each other in the bed they share, with the dull gleam of a silver ring catching bright in the moonlight, John does not doubt. He is too full of everything else to have any room for doubt: wonder and excitement and hope and sheer, unadulterated happiness that John had spent years thinking he did not deserve.

It’s not a question of deserving, with Sherlock. It’s not a question of whether anything is enough, whether anything has been earned. Sherlock only makes it a question of accepting and of giving back, of pouring out things gone too long unsaid, of sharing and growing and nurturing something that works, something that will survive beyond, something that comforts and supports and holds them close together. The way Sherlock loves him makes John want to give more, to give everything, and John has never loved someone before that felt like it was building, rather than taking. 

Sherlock had taken John’s hand and redefined love into something John had thought only existed in fairy tales, in myths and legends and the sorts of stories told to children in all their innocence and naivety. 

And now Sherlock has asked John to let that love last forever, and John is going to _marry him._

Across the bed Sherlock’s hand shifts and his fingers close around John’s. His index finger swipes over the ring, briefly, as if to check that it’s real, that it happened, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “All right?” he murmurs.

John can’t stop himself from smiling as he blinks away the prickle in the back of his eyes. He leans over and plants a kiss, soft and slow, on the sleepy line of Sherlock’s mouth. “All right,” John agrees, and he tangles their fingers together and sinks back down into sleep, holding on.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr!](http://www.watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] a good old-fashioned happy ending](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8703607) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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